Powell Valley Electric Cooperative supports the expansion of broadband services to all of its membership. In 2018 the PVEC Board of Directors unanimously approved the deployment of fiber to all 31,000 members in the service territory, This fiber deployment will enable every member to have a gateway to access the internet, phone, and broadcast services.
PVEC Fiber, a partnership between PVEC and Scott County Telephone, has a variety of plans available to members, depending upon the needs of your home or business. Unlimited phone service is available with the fiber plan you choose. For more information, call 423-626-5204.
You may have seen PVEC, Scott County Telephone and third party contactor crews working on installing the backbone, doing splicing, and connecting homes to the lines. in the past year, PVEC has installed miles of backbone across the service area. PVEC is currently (February 2021) at work in the Clinch Valley area of Hawkins County up to Fairview in Virginia, in Grainger County on the north side of Clinch Mountain, along Snake Hollow Road in Hancock and Claiborne County, in the Sharps Chapel area of Union County, and in Lee County.
This is a very costly process and requires a lot of time and energy. The cost of installing fiber backbone is $3.00 a foot, which amounts to about $16,000 per mile. If you multiply this by the amount of miles of backbone installed in 2020, the total cost is $ ???? . This does not include the cost of running lines to individual homes and businesses.
PVEC does not want to add the cost of providing the line and connections for high speed fiber to your electric bill. Grant funding. is essential to deployment of the fiber. Two recent grants from the state of Tennessee were: $1.3 million for the Treadway area; $1.9 million for the Sharps Chapel area.