LINCOLN TRAIL BROADBAND INITIATIVE

ABOUT THE INITIATIVE

Rural LaRue County, Kentucky is home to some of the most beautiful landscapes and most peaceful places In the State of Kentucky; acres of beautiful farmland, healthy crops as far as the eye can see, curvy backroads, and more. However, the broadband availability In these areas leaves much to be desired for families who work from home, stream their sources of entertainment, and have businesses In these areas.

Problem #1 - Many rural areas of LaRue County, Kentucky do not have access to a minimum of 25Mbps download speeds and 3Mbps, which allows an area to be defined as "served" In accordance to the FCC.

Problem #2 - With many of these rural areas, homes and businesses are spread out far and few between. In some areas, you can go nearly a mile between houses, making fiber-optic deployments expensive and cost-prohibitive.

Problem #3 - Even though these rural areas may only have access to ancient DSL technology, providers still choose to charge outrageous prices for a service that may not even be useful. In some areas of the county, providers are charging as much as $90 per month for sub-10Mbps Internet service, which Is completely unacceptable.

WHO ARE WE? WHAT DO WE DO?

Telecast Communications, LLC Is a fixed-wireless Internet service provider focused on serving the rural areas of LaRue County. Utilizing the latest In fixed-wireless technology from a variety of manufacturers, we have formed partnerships with local businesses, farms, and organizations to have access to a variety of vertical Infrastructure In our community.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that many people would have to start working from home. With that, we knew that many backroads areas of the county was severely lacking when It came to broadband availability and reliability. Through our Initial partnership with The LaRue County Fiscal Court under leadership from Judge Executive Tommy Turner, they allowed us to test this theory of using fixed-wireless access points up on a tower to "shoot" a wireless signal out Into some of these areas In question. From there, we mounted a small directional antenna on the outside of some homes we were testing this with and Installed a high-performance wireless router capable of the speeds we hoped to deliver.

Our first test customer was approximately three miles line-of-sight to that tower with a clear line of sight to where our device was mounted. After we connected, aligned, and configured it, our first SpeedTest result showed a whopping 186Mbps download speed and an Impressive 133Mbps upload speed. It was at that point that we realized we could completely change the landscape for rural Internet connectivity.

From there, we began adding equipment on a grain elevator between Hodgenville and Sonora at Fresh Start Farms. We utilized a point-to-point wireless link to provide connectivity to that site as well, and a number of additional sites following the completion of that site.

The advantage of fixed wireless access (FWA) technology Is the ability to rapidly expand our coverage areas, build new sites, and connect customers In a matter of days rather than the months or years that coax and fiber-optics would take to plan, construct, and connect customers to. Our basic tower equipment can supply a 100Mbps connection to any home or business that Is line-of-sight to one of our sites, and a guaranteed 30Mbps for near-line-of-sight customers to specific sites.

Fast forward to today, we have a total of fourteen tower sites In LaRue County and service a total of 312 customers across Greater LaRue County and Hart County.