Columbia County weighs countywide fiber build, BEAD-funded options and smaller community-anchor ring

Columbia County commissioners and staff met June 4 for a work session to review design, cost and financing options for a proposed countywide fiber network and to request more detailed cost breaks and updated BEAD/BEED eligibility analysis.

The county’s information-technology director, Holly Miller, and consultants from RSG/Arcadis presented four options: do nothing; build only to federally eligible BEAD (referred to in the meeting as “BEED/BEAD”) premises; a BEAD-plus plan that connects many additional premises; and a smaller community-anchor-institution (CAI) ring that would provide backbone connectivity to schools, health and other public facilities.

The BEAD-only scenario was estimated in the presentation at roughly $51,000,000 with a federal request of $38,000,000; consultants said that option would pass about 22,533 premises but only 2,939 of those were BEAD-eligible, and under the nominal take-rate assumptions the project would take many years (presenters said about 17 years) to reach positive cash flow and about 19 years to break even. By contrast, the BEAD-plus scenario expands to pass many more premises; consultants presented a model showing a $66,000,000 build with the same $38,000,000 federal request and said that scenario would be cash-flow positive in year one under the team’s nominal subscription assumptions because it captures significantly more…