The $150 million project to give people in rural parts of the Shenandoah Valley, including Augusta County, is still coming along in fits and starts, if that.
“Is there any way you could do an article on the situation with All Points Broadband in Augusta County? Having the fiber optic installed has been a major project that has given a lot of Augusta County residents hope. So far, there has been little action in my area in terms of hooking up to residences. Since April, I have been told several times, ‘In a week or so,’” an AFP reader who lives in Mount Sidney, in the northern part of Augusta County, wrote to me this week.
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Have you signed up for internet service through All Points Broadband, and are having trouble either with the internet service you’re receiving, or the trouble that you’ve signed up, and aren’t getting internet service yet? Let me know at [email protected].
We reached out to the county administrator’s office to see what we could find out about this from the local government’s perspective.
The word back – “Residents are encouraged to go to the All Points website to find out about service offered at their address” – was not all that helpful.
The Mount Sidney reader told me, in a follow-up email, that he had already done that, beginning with signing up for the service way back on April 2.
“I have called and spoken to a representative three times since then. Typically, I have been put on hold for 5 or 10 minutes (with a message that says I am ‘next in the queue’). When I do get someone, that’s when they tell me, ‘In the next week or so.’ I have also gotten two emails that told me to expect installation in the upcoming week,” he told me.
A concern noted by the reader is that All Points Broadband, which is based in Richmond, has a D-minus grade from the Better Business Bureau, and a two-star rating (on a five-star scale) on Yelp, with a multitude of negative reviews about poor customer service and poor internet service.
Thing is, we’re five years into the planning and infrastructure work on this project, which encompasses an eight-county area in the Shenandoah Valley, and we’re well behind the point of turning back at this stage.
It’s a massive undertaking – the Augusta County portion alone involves 650 miles of last-mile fiber lines that would serve more than 6,000 locations, among the more than 40,000 overall in the project region.
We reached out to All Points Broadband to get the company’s side of this story, and at this writing, we haven’t gotten anything back; we will update the story with any response.
Update: Friday, 2:35 p.m.
We heard back from an All Points Broadband representative.
“While I occasionally hear about customer experiences like this, most of our customer care feedback is very positive, and subscribers are very happy with the service when it becomes available, as illustrated by our high Google review rating.
“We have made a lot of progress in Augusta County. There are some residents and areas of the network that are dependent on a critical path not entirely under our control, like where permitting or easement approvals from third parties are required prior to our construction.”
The rep pledged to make contact with our reader; we’ll report back once we hear from the reader about that interaction.
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Chris Graham
