Residents and businesses in northern Halifax County and the Brookneal area will have access to high speed Internet service under a public-private partnership unveiled last week between EMBARQ and the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC).
EMBARQ will bring its high speed internet service to as many as 3,000 additional residential and business customers in Patrick, Campbell, Halifax and Bedford counties. The communications giant initially will invest $900,000 to add equipment at 10 Stuart-area sites in Patrick County and nine sites in Altavista and Brookneal areas of Campbell, Halifax and Bedford counties.
EMBARQ will receive a 50 percent match in capital from MBC, through funding provided by the Virginia Tobacco Commission (VTC).
“It’s hard to overstate the economic development impact of broadband deployment in the area,” said Tom Matthews, Regional Manager for Media Relations for Embarq. “This puts these rural levels on par with virtually any metropolitan area anywhere.”
“We are pleased to be able to significantly expand broadband to these areas of Virginia,” said Pat Stutzman, EMBARQ regional vice president-network. “We face a number of challenges in extending broadband service into very rural areas, and this partnership makes it possible to offer services much earlier than prevailing economic factors would have allowed.”
EMBARQ is one of six companies that will be partnering with MBC to expand broadband in Stuart, Altavista, Appomattox, Brookneal and Lawrenceville, Va. MBC’s use of Tobacco Commission funding matched investments by EMBARQ and the other private-sector telecommunications companies to accelerate deployment of broadband to Southside Virginia communities.
Construction is expected to begin in September, with deployment expected to begin in December 2007. The project is expected to be completed by March 31, 2008.
Matthews said the partnership with Mid-Atlantic Broadband was essential to extending service to such areas as Brookneal and northern Halifax County, which otherwise lack the population density to ensure a reasonable rate of return for broadband investments.
“If not for this kind of partner, it just wouldn’t make economic sense to make this kind of investment,” said Matthews.
EMBARQ plans to offer its High Speed Internet service for as little as $24.95 when purchased with home phone service. The DSL connections will offer download speeds of up to 1.5 megabits, roughly comparable to the speeds of T1 lines, as well as fast upload speeds for peer-to-peer computing and gaming, said Matthews.
Stutzman added that “we offer a low, fixed monthly price versus cable’s often introductory rates that typically increase dramatically over time.”
Embarq Corporation , headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, offers a full suite of communications services and is included in the S&P 500. The company has approximately 20,000 employees and operates in 18 states. For consumers, EMBARQ offers an innovative portfolio of services that includes reliable local and long distance home phone service, high-speed Internet, wireless, and satellite TV from DISH Network® — all on one monthly bill.
For businesses, EMBARQ has a comprehensive range of flexible and integrated services designed to help businesses of all sizes be more productive and communicate with their customers. This service portfolio includes local voice and data services, long distance, Business Class DSL, wireless, enhanced data network services, voice and data communication equipment and managed network services.
For more information, visit embarq.com.