Where Virginia's Rural Broadband Deployment Began

Connect America Summit Location – The Pioneer Center in Duffield, Virginia

Virginia’s federally-funded rural broadband deployment experiments began in Duffield in 2002 in the inaugural round of the USDA Community Connect grant program.  According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the population of Duffield was 62. 

Powell Mountain Overlook Near Duffield, Virginia

The grant award project summary provided at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/SupportDocuments/UTP-CCProjectSummaries2002.pdf reported, “The Pioneer Center for Business Opportunity, a local business incubator will serve as the community center that will be utilized to provide education and training in the use of the Internet and web browsers, community boards, directories, through the use of short-courses, seminars and coordination with other teaching institutions in the region. This project proposes to use the existing Duffield central office to mount all of the electronic multiplexer equipment to provide a direct “fiber to the premise” solution that uses two buried fibers to each location to provide all of the communications services. Scott County will provide 100mbit Ethernet fiber optic connection to each household, business and institution within the project service area that signs up for the service.”

Now, in 2014, as the FCC has launched the Connect America Phase II national dialogue and rural broadband experiments funding, the Pioneer Center for Business Opportunity in Duffield, which began offering rural fiber-to-the-premise in 2002, offers an ideal location for hosting the Connect America Summits in 2014.  Welcome to Duffield, where Virginia’s rural broadband deployment experiments began!

For more information about the Connect America Summit, 

visit www.connectamerica.blogspot.com 

email Joan Minor at joan@appalachianresources.com

or call Joan Minor at (276) 445-4600.