Out of money, West Virginia broadband council ends 5-year run

After a five-year run, the West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council likely held its last meeting Oct 22.

In 2009, then-Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV), now a US senator, established the Broadband Deployment Council to fund projects that would make high-speed Internet available to West Virginia’s most remote areas. State lawmakers set aside $5 million for the council to spend. The council is set to disband Dec. 31, after the Legislature rejected repeated requests to provide additional funding for the group.

The Council released a financial statement that showed a wireless Internet provider in Wheeling and an out-of-state consultant received the bulk of the council’s grants. StratusWave, which serves businesses and residential customers in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle, picked up $2.2 million in grants, or 44 percent of the $5 million the council has distributed over the years. StratusWave received nine of the 11 grants funded by the council. The grant money is being used to expand high-speed Internet in West Virginia. The council also previously awarded $713,000 to Bridgeport-based Citynet, which plans to expand Internet service at Snowshoe Mountain resort, and $57,528 to 3WLogic, a wireless Internet provider headquartered in Buckhannon. The broadband council paid nearly $2 million, or 40 percent of its total funds, to a Pennslvania-based consultant, L.R. Kimball. The firm managed the council’s grant program. The council, which has no full-time staff, also spent $20,000 on lawyers with the attorney general’s office, and $13,800 for “miscellaneous expenses,” according to the financial statement.