(Chatham) — The group installing broadband fiber in Pittsylvania County is slowly but surely adding more customers.
Rob Taylor with RiverStreet Networks told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday they now have over 3,600 locations connected up to their high-speed network. They’ve added nearly a thousand “hot sites” over the past month. “A majority of those are in the Callands area off of what we call the Strawberry C.O.,” Taylor told Supervisors. “That’s a data hut located just off of Strawberry Road.”
Taylor says nearly two-thousand locations are under construction, mostly east of Chatham and around Swansonville and Climax. “We have successfully completed the installation of all the data huts in the county with the exception of Ringgold,” Taylor added. “White’s Construction out of Sutherlin is working in the Ringgold area, putting down gravel, installing a storm drain and getting that ready for a building to be set.”
Taylor says their efforts in one part of the county suffered a minor setback during the first quarter of the year. “We were planning on putting in a building at the Brosville Elementary School during Christmas break but we didn’t make that timeline,” Taylor said. “We were able to get that in during the spring break so we didn’t create any delays in the school.”
As of April 15, Taylor says they have 384 customers signed up for their service, with 129 customers waiting to be activated. That means 14% of the customers who live in areas where the network has activated have signed up for service.
“Normally during the first year we anticipate something along a 5% ‘take rate’ for customers on a new network,” Taylor said. “So we’re already well past that. We’ve already got active orders from the Strawberry C.O.” The Strawberry Exchange is the most recent one to go “live.” They’ve already completed exchanges in Renan, Sandy Level, Lakeside and Java.
Taylor says signing up more customers will happen as soon as they can get the word out. In the meantime, he’s urging potential customers to check out their webpage. “They can always go to myriverstreet.net and click on ‘Fiber is the Future’. Then click on ‘Pittsylvania County’,” Taylor said. “You’ll see a map where you can type in your address to see if service is available. If it is they can sign up for service. If its not yet available they can sign up to indicate they are interested.”
RiverStreet is installing over 1,500 miles of fiber optic cable throughout the County. The $91 million project will bring high-speed internet to over 16,500 homes and businesses. Most of the local money for the project is coming from COVID recovery grants.