MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Broadband LDC (LDC) has faced a number of setbacks in its quest to bring internet service to Sullivan County.

The Sullivan County Legislature established the LDC in 2020, and tasked it with bringing broadband internet service to underserved areas of the county. Supply chain disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic have delayed the acquisition of necessary equipment, while a key grant took over a year to come through.

The Sullivan County Broadband LDC met on October 27 to discuss the progress it has made in 2022, as it dealt with and moved past those challenges.

“Obviously, things have changed from when we first started rolling with this,” said Michael Brooks, chair of the LDC.

Brooks characterized 2022 as a year when the LDC gathered more data and better figured out its role. The LDC will avoid some of the responsibilities it planned to take on—such as providing its own, branded internet service and doing the marketing for that service—because private companies will provide those services.

The LDC talked with Archtop Fiber (a newly established company looking to bring fiber internet and phone service to over 500,000 customers in the Hudson Valley and beyond) as well as Integrated Systems (a vendor that already provides some services to the county) about helping with the LDC’s mission.

Archtop’s network will take a few years to roll out, said Brooks; the company will have to run fiber through the streets, an extensive process. “What will be in it for Sullivan County is obviously tremendous, but it’s quite a path to get there.”

The LDC is continuing in the interim with its original plan: broadcasting wireless internet signals through county-owned cell towers.

Heather Jacksy, Sullivan County’s chief planner, and Lorne Green, commissioner of the county’s information services department, are putting together the bid documents seeking contractors for the next phase of that plan involving construction, said Jacksy. Their target is to advertise the request for bids on Friday, December 2, and have all bids returned by Friday, January 6.

“We all know that things change, but we don’t want them to change too much,” said Jacksy. The Economic Development Administration grant that the LDC accepted requires that construction start by June 9, 2023.