Lewis County PUD awarded a WSBO grant to fund a fiber project covering the Bunker Creek areas.
Chehalis, WA – The Lewis County Public Utility District (PUD) was recently awarded a $11,958,421 grant from the Washington State Broadband Office (WSBO) to bring fiber and broadband to the Bunker Creek service zones.
This project will serve 1,714 residential and 203 commercial customers in the rural and broadband unserved communities in West Lewis County.
“We are excited to receive the Bunker Creek area grant, an important part of Lewis County PUD's promise to bring high-speed internet to underserved communities in Lewis County and deliver on our Board’s vision,” said PUD General Manager David Plotz.
This project will include 108 miles of new fiber optic cable through a mixture of underground and overhead fiber optic and electronic equipment west of Chehalis along Highway 6, extending both north and south of Highway 6 in the vicinities of Ceres Hill and Crego Hill.
“The high costs of deploying broadband infrastructure have made it difficult for internet service providers to offer reliable and affordable broadband internet to rural areas,” said Northwest Open Access Network’s (NoaNet) Senior Executive Director of Infrastructure Strategy, Chris Walker. “However, through these broadband funding grants and the leadership provided by Lewis County PUD, we are addressing these issues and solving real problems.”
The network will offer a Gigabit per second (Gbps) symmetrical connection speed with the capacity to serve up to 10 Gbps to residential, commercial, and industrial customers that may require such speeds.
Construction is expected to start in late summer 2024.
For information on this project, contact PUD Broadband and External Funding Manager Willie Painter at Email.
About Lewis County Public Utility District
Lewis County PUD is a community-owned, locally governed utility providing power services and telecommunications infrastructure to approximately 35,000 customers throughout most of Lewis County and adjacent communities.