News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Planning Commission approved an ordinance Tuesday that would expand faster broadband services to rural areas of the county.
Commissioner Jordan Iwanyszyn says the ordinance will make a positive economic impact on the communities.
“In the time I’ve been on the commission and keeping up with county issues beforehand, I believe this is one of the most significant steps we’ve taken forward in helping economic development, and recruiting a lot of folks in here,” Iwanyszyn says. “We try to recruit tech industry here and we try to partner with (Tennessee) Tech on so many things. This is a critical step forward.”
The ordinance would help encourage broadband internet to expand their services to portions of the county who currently have unreliable, slow, or even no connection available.
Committee Chairperson Cathy Reel says citizens in rural areas will benefit greatly if the Commission approves the ordinance.
“I think it’d be a wonderful thing, especially if they live out in the rural area and they’re trying to do things business-wise, they can work from home,” Reel says. “[They’ll enjoy] Everyday life with faster internet service coming to them in their home.”
Commissioner Kathy Dunn says the ordinance will also benefit the service providers such as Twin Lakes and Spectrum.
“It gives them the ability, once we adopt that, to get 10 extra points on their grants when they apply to expand [broadband] out into the county,” Dunn says, “because we’ve got people that don’t have access to broadband services.”
Reel says a price for expanding the services throughout the county is currently unknown at this time.
“That’s probably what we’ll be discussing more Monday night and the different fees,” Reel says. “That probably depends on how [companies] go about with their forms and their documents and everything in applying for these grants. That will probably depend on the fees and I’m sure (County Executive) Randy Porter will probably have that for us Monday night.”
The County Commission will vote on the ordinance during their next meeting Monday, Nov. 19.
