BY LANCE GAITHER

lance.gaither@bluegrassnewsmedia.com

With ongoing broadband expansion throughout Boyle County, Judge-Executive Trille Bottom and magistrates Jason Cullen and Jamey Gay discussed the progress on the project.

“It is a slow process,” Bottom said. “I have to be honest that there is not a lot of information available. We have a lot of constituents asking for updates about when broadband is available in your area. I know crews are out there working. We would like to see progress move faster, but it is what it is. We hope once it is all said and done — Spectrum said in 24 months — we hope at that point most of our constituents have access to broadband. Ones that don’t, we are going to work on a plan to help get them broadband, We want it available to all citizens of the county.”

Magistrate Cullen thinks the project is on track to meet the original 24-month target.

“We have had close to 200 people able to hookup on the last update,” Cullen said. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that is homes, with two to four people in each home, that is a good hookup. I want everybody to have it now, but there is a lot that goes into to running those lines. You need lease permits for each hole, get approval, and start running a line. It’s a project. By October, if half the county is hooked up we need to have a serious conversation with Charter and Spectrum to get them on track.”

Gay explained that the severe weather the county has experienced this year has affected progress on the expansion.

“The weather has hindered it, but work continues,” Gay said. “As far as I know they are still on schedule. At this point I think progress is continuing.”

Broadband expansion throughout Kentucky has been a focus of Gov. Andy Beshear, and the state has secured more than $1 billion in federal grants to help fund the initiative.

Beshear has said the existing KentuckyWired broadband network, a public-private partnership creating a network of fiber-optic cable Internet connection to all 120 counties, will eventually be integrated into the broadband projects funded by new federal dollars.