Custer County approves Visionary Broadband tower despite concerns it could mark areas as 'served' for federal grants

Custer County commissioners voted unanimously on Oct. 8 to approve a special-use permit allowing Visionary Broadband to replace an aging communications tower and build a new tower at the Sangre de Cristo (Kettle) substation.

Brian Shepherd, vice president of network expansion at Visionary Broadband, told the board the replacement would modernize equipment, extend the existing roughly 5–6 mile coverage footprint and ‘‘allow us to reach a 100 new residences that right now don't have service other than satellite’’ while enabling upgrades for about 800 current customers. Shepherd said Visionary has a signed lease with the substation owner and that the Riggs family, which hosts the existing tower on private farmland, wants the old structure removed.

The project drew sustained technical and policy questioning from commissioners and other providers about backhaul, redundancy and federal grant rules. Eric Rupleski, president of Hilltop Broadband, said his company would remain neutral on the permit but emphasized the county’s multiyear public-private partnership to bring fiber to town centers. Mark Carmel, a consultant to the towns…