LEBANON, Va.– The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority is infusing $2 million into Southwest Virginia’s broadband Internet infrastructure, officials announced Thursday.
The money, which came from the natural gas severance tax, is going to the Cumberland Plateau and Lenowisco planning districts for use in Russell, Tazewell, Buchanan, Dickenson, Wise, Lee and Scott counties to provide broadband infrastructure to help with business retention and growth.
“You can’t operate without it anymore,” said Larry Carr, executive director of the Cumberland Plateau Company, the planning district’s nonprofit corporation. He noted the important role broadband has played in job creation and private investment in the area in the past few years.
“We’ve gone from technological isolation to worldwide connectivity,” Carr said. “It opens up new vistas that we couldn’t even have dreamed of years ago.”
Mike Quillen, treasurer of VCEDA and chief executive officer of Alpha Natural Resources, compared this broadband Internet investment to the 1980s expansion of highway, water and sewer services – a utility needed not just by giants of industry but “all the other jobs, the five- and 10-people employers that are the backbone of our region and always have been.”
Jonathan Belcher, executive director of VCEDA, said the first priority will be to bring broadband connections to businesses, entrepreneurs and people with the opportunity to work using the Internet.
“It’ll help existing companies to grow, and it will also help to attract new companies,” Belcher said.
He said the number of jobs created and retained because of the project is already greater than the 100 jobs per $1 million spent that the Cumberland Plateau Company predicted in its July 30 grant application.
State Delegate Bud Phillips, D-Sandy Ridge, said the investment, in addition to helping business, also is a step toward another goal – bringing high-speed Internet to the masses.
“The next challenge for us to do is to make sure this beautiful technology, this world-class technology, is made available to our citizens,” said Phillips, whose constituents live in Russell, Dickenson and Wise counties.
“I know that it will be done, and it is going to make us a very competitive region of the state and nation once we have that connectivity to individual homes throughout the region. I know that we can do that, but I think that’s our challenge for the future.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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