FCC: Thousands Of West Virginians Will Have Ultra-Fast Broadband Over Next Decade

More than 119,000 additional West Virginia homes and businesses will have access to high-speed broadband internet over a 10-year period.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced this week that an estimated 218,000 people living and working in West Virginia will gain access to high-speed broadband through an auction that was held by the commission called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I.

“This historic auction is great news for the residents of so many rural West Virginia communities, who will get access to high-quality broadband service in areas that for too long have been on the wrong side of the digital divide,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a press release.

In West Virginia, the auction allocated $362 million in support of expanding broadband to unserved homes and businesses over the next decade.

Nearly all locations in West Virginia that were eligible for the auction will be receiving access to broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps (megabits per second), and 91 percent will have access to gigabit-speed internet, which, according to companies like Verizon and Comcast, is internet “in a league of its own.”

Gigabit broadband is one of the fastest internet speeds available and allows consumers to download large video files like an hour-long, high definition online class or webinar in seconds.

All 55 counties will experience some of this expansion, the FCC said.

“We structured this innovative and groundbreaking auction to prioritize bids for high-speed, low-latency services to deliver the best results for rural Americans, and the results show that this strategy worked,” Pai said. “This auction was the Commission’s single largest step ever taken toward delivering digital opportunity to every American and is another key success in our ongoing commitment to universal service.”

The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction is part of a broader effort by the FCC to close the digital divide in rural America. In October 2020, the commission adopted rules creating the 5G Fund for Rural America, which will distribute up to $9 billion over the next decade to bring 5G wireless broadband connectivity to rural America.

See below for a list of winning bidders, number of homes and businesses to be served, and total support for 10 years in West Virginia by county: