Broadband Q1 2024 Status Update

In January 2023, BrightRidge celebrated adding our 10,000th Broadband customer. We have now connected more than 14,000 households/ businesses and continue to experience extremely high demand for our products. If you read our Google Business reviews for BrightRidge
Broadband, you will see that our customers are very satisfied with our super-fast Broadband speeds, reliability, commitment to support, and low costs.

Simple without Strings attached.
We took a simple approach for our Broadband product offerings: 1) Provide the fastest Internet speeds in the country 2) Design the network to be resilient and reliable. 3) Provide local personnel to install and support your services. 4) Price the products at very competitive rates. 5) Avoid the bait-and-switch promos and residential contracts used by the competitors. 6) Provide zero-cost in-home installations. 7) Provide local Customer Service and Technical Support staff to be able to respond promptly to your needs.
In addition, we haven’t increased our Broadband rates since launching the service in 2019. How often have the other providers raised your rates or forced you to call back to get a temporary promo discount?

If you are a current BrightRidge Broadband customer, you already know that we have the fastest, most reliable, and best supported Broadband service in the region. We were excited to be selected as the Johnson City Press “2023 Best Internet Provider” for the second year straight!

We are committed to maintaining our Fiber Broadband services as one of the best available in the country and one of the few with 10Gig speeds. Our 10Gig product is also priced the lowest of any offered in the country.

Demand for our products continues to be tremendous as both households and businesses realize that we have raised the bar for the local competitors. Don’t settle for mediocre internet service and poor support, when you can get the best with our local staff supporting you during the activation and afterward. Your family deserves the best, so why not call and switch today?

Status of broadband deployment
Check availability for your address at www.mybrightridge.com
BrightRidge has been able to accelerate our fiber Broadband deployment in the urban areas of Johnson City and Gray by two years, and portions of the rural communities (Bowmantown, Pleasant Valley, Fall Branch, New Salem) by five years.

The BrightRidge board approved additional investments for our current budget (FY24) which extends Broadband to the communities of Colonial Heights, Cherokee Rd (southwest JC), and the underground areas within the previous Phases of construction. We already had Phases 7 and 8 of broadband construction scheduled for this fiscal year, which includes the southwestern portion of Johnson City and those subdivisions south of I26 from Boones Creek Rd eastward.

Based on our original plans we would have extended fiber broadband to 5,300 homes and businesses during the current fiscal year (July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024). With the acceleration and add-ons to our project, we will now add that opportunity for approximately 17,000 customers to
subscribe to our nation-leading Broadband services.

We applied for $6.68 million in TN-ECD grant funding to match our $2.86 million investment to serve those homes identified as unserved (lacking 25Mb/3Mb internet) with Broadband access. This includes 2,067 households in the rural areas of Washington County and 200 homes in Greene County. The ECD is expected to announce award recipients this month (January 2024). If our application is approved, we also plan to extend services to 3,800 additional homes along those routes in the months following the broadband grant completion.

Understanding the 5G (5th Generation cellular technology) hype used in many advertisements.
Should you consider 5G home Internet service from the cell provider instead of a wireline fiber service?

The cell providers use the term 5G very loosely, but in reality, the current implementation deployed in our area is more of an enhancement of the previous 4G technology and doesn’t get close to the bandwidth previously promised of 5G. Feedback from consumers indicates that they only
realize a bandwidth gain of approximately 20% more than before.

To gain the promised benefits of 5G, the provider would need to deploy high-frequency millimeter wave spectrum and quadruple the number of cell towers that currently exist. The mmWave signals can’t travel for more than a few thousand feet nor do they easily penetrate homes nor other objects.

Do your research and you’ll find that many customers report poor satisfaction with the cellular “5G home internet” services. One user stated, “Service was extremely intermittent, frequently testing as low as 20Mb/5Mb”. Availability is also limited geographically, typically by proximity to the closest cell tower, and subject to obstructions between the tower and home.