Under the contract, CNX will develop various technical and financial models to identify the best path for establishing public-private partnerships to invest in infrastructure and provide advanced broadband services to county residents, businesses and community anchor institutions such as schools, libraries, healthcare and public safety agencies.
The effort has been accelerated by the start of construction of the state's new "KentuckyWired" middle-mile fiber network, which is intended to provide every Kentucky county more options to develop faster, cheaper high-speed networks locally. Local private or public Internet service providers (ISPs) can lease fiber access and connect their last-mile network to the KentuckyWired network to provide broadband to individual homes and businesses. Because KentuckyWired is an "open access" system, any ISP may lease fiber connectivity.
CNX is also involved in fiber projects in Ohio and Michigan.