Geneva County votes to add Alabama Fiber Network as secondary internet provider

The Geneva County Commission voted 4-0 on April 28 to discontinue Spectrum as the county's primary internet vendor and to add Alabama Fiber Network as a secondary rollover provider, citing repeated outages.

'The service with Spectrum is not reliable and is down more than it is connected,' Chairman Toby L. Seay said when presenting the IT provider's recommendation. Commissioner Bart Wilks made the motion to discontinue Spectrum and add Alabama Fiber Network; Commissioner Weston Spivey seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

Commissioner Jeff Hatcher asked whether Alabama Fiber Network had a franchise agreement to use county rights-of-way. Engineer Justin Barfield and County Attorney Phil Eldridge explained the county has few franchise agreements and that municipal franchise arrangements and gross-receipts shares are handled differently in towns. Eldridge said the county does have a couple of agreements historically but that this vendor arrangement would follow county procurement practice.

The commission did not attach a separate funding appropriation to the vote; county officials said the change is expected to upgrade the fiber connection and produce a slight cost savings. Next steps include coordinating contract paperwork and scheduling the switchover with IT staff and the selected vendor.