SALISBURY – With $9.8 million in grant funding from the state, and a match totaling $3.5 million, representatives for an internet service provider say they hope to complete an broadband infrastructure project on the east side within a year.
On Tuesday, the Wicomico County Council met with Talkie Communications co-owners Andre and Andrew DeMattia to discuss the company’s plans for building out fiber-optic broadband on the east side of the county.
In addition to a $9.8 million grant award from the Maryland Office of Statewide Broadband, Talkie will provide an additional $3.5 million in matching funds to serve 900 unserved homes.
“We applied for the grant in multiple locations, and we did win the area near Pittsville …,” said Andre DeMattia. “It’s actually 80 miles of fiber that we are going to be laying down.”
Through a request for proposal (RFP) process, Wicomico County earlier this year announced its partnership with Talkie Communications, a Chestertown-based internet service provider, to secure state grant funding for local broadband infrastructure projects.
And with a letter of support from the county, Talkie was able to secure $9.8 million from the Office of Statewide Broadband to complete a $13.1 million project.
“There was no county money that came from this grant,” Andre DeMattia told officials this week. “We are doing the match.”
Talkie representatives say they expect to sign a memorandum of understanding with the state agency this month. While it has a three-year timetable, the company expects to complete the project in about a year.
“One question a lot of people want to know is when are you going to start,” Andre DeMattia said. “What a lot of people don’t realize is we’ve already started. We started in March, and we’ve already placed a remote central office in the Morris Road area.”
Talkie representatives noted that they are also expanding broadband infrastructure to other nearby homes.
“We are actually going outside the zone of the grant, picking up extra customers around the area …,” Andre DeMattia said. “If someone signs up one or two miles from the areas we’re already at, we usually extend our network to help our customers and add more customers to our base.”
Officials say the project is just part of a larger initiative to provide broadband to roughly 2,000 unserved homes in Wicomico County.
“This grant award will significantly enhance the ability to provide broadband internet service availability to unserved residences and businesses here in Wicomico County,” Acting County Executive John Psota said in a statement, “and we will continue to explore additional opportunities.”
Andre DeMattia noted that Talkie plans to apply for other grant funding opportunities in the future.
“Some of them we need county support, and some of them, we don’t …,” he said. “I think the reason we won this one was because there is a great need here, and the county’s never won any grants before when it’s come to broadband. And number two, because of the RFP process, I truly believe that is a really strong indication to the Office of Statewide Broadband that you guys are serious about getting stuff done.”
