KUB Fiber is now available to all Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) customers in Union County. KUB officials, along with Union County Mayor Jason Bailey and other state dignitaries, gathered at Union County High School on March 21 to celebrate the availability of high-speed internet to all KUB customers in Union County. KUB serves the southern half of the county which includes Maynardville, Plainview and Luttrell and their suburbs, indicated in blue on the map pictured. There are some in this area where high-speed internet was not available until this KUB Fiber rollout.

KUB president and CEO Gabriel J. Bolas II kicked off the celebration event. He began by recognizing some folks in attendance and thanking them for their support. Acknowledgements included Kathy Hamilton, a member of the KUB Board of Commissioners, Pat Gibson from Representative Tim Burchett’s office, Emily McCall from Senator Hagerty’s office, and Chealsea Ivens from Senator Blackburn’s office.

“I’m grateful to our partners in Union County and at the State of Tennessee who helped us bring KUB Fiber to these customers sooner,” Bolas said. “These community members not only have a reliable, lightning-fast internet option, but all KUB customers in the area will benefit from electric reliability improvements that fiber technology provides.” KUB was able to expedite its rollout to our Union County area with support from the State of Tennessee. This is a major milestone to KUB Fiber rollout which is halfway through their system wide buildout.

According to KUB press release, “KUB received $6.5 million Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and $1 million from Union County to bring KUB Fiber service to the county.” Bolas expressed a special appreciation to Stuart McWhorter, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, and his team for their efforts in making broadband a reality across the state of Tennessee.

He continued by giving a little history about how KUB had the idea a few years ago to get into the fiber business. He explained how they realized during and after Covid the real need for everyone to have reliable high-speed internet with so many people working from home and kids doing school online at home. “Now, high speed internet is available to nearly 84,000 residential and business customers across the KUB service area.” KUB Fiber has been rolled out to 5,800 homes in the Union County KUB service area. He said, “I am proud to say we serve over 2,000 customers in this area.” And he went on to boast about their 97 percent success rate and how the folks “love it”.

Bolas also announced that they will be lighting up free wi-fi service in two Union County parks. Wilson Park and the UC Farmers Market, both located near the Union County High School, will soon have free wi-fi service to those visiting the parks. This is part of “the KUB Fiber effort to close the digital divide in areas with underserved and unserved communities,” according to the KUB press release.

Bolas introduced Bailey, and told how he came to him early on, advocating for a reliable high speed internet service and was instrumental in bringing KUB Fiber to our county. Bailey echoed this comment with his own statement, “For years, I heard from residents that the lack of internet access was increasingly difficult.” He said, “I was an advocate for KUB Fiber from the beginning, and it’s so exciting that now, all Union County residents served by KUB have access to high-speed internet. I really cannot overstate the impact this will have on our county.”

The mayor explained how having access to high-speed internet service paves the way for other programs that would be beneficial to the community. He said they’re looking at a program called Connect Ed through KUB and plan to present it to the budget commission in April to get funding. For those unfamiliar with Connect Ed, KUB already offers this program for Knox County residents which offers free high speed internet service to underprivileged students K-12 that meet a certain income criteria, which is funded by Knox County and the City of Knoxville, according to KUB’s website.

Mayor Bailey announced, “The county just received a grant called “Tech Goes Home” for $1 million and that grant is to provide wi-fi hot spots in our community and community centers across the county.” It’s also to provide our senior citizens with Chrome books and the training needed to use them, to allow them access to needed tele-health services. He continued by saying KUB Fiber was the glue that brought everything together and spoke of many others that would benefit from having reliable high-speed internet access.

The mayor also addressed the other half of the county that is outside the KUB service area. Those are broken up into three areas; the Sharps Chapel area; the 13th District (Sneedville); and the Big Ridge area. The service provider for Sharps Chapel is Powell Valley Electric. Powell Valley Electric and Scott County Telephone did a partnership to provide high speed internet service coverage for the folks in that area. The mayor said, this leaves two areas in the county that still do not have high speed internet access. The 13th District on the north side of Norris Lake, also known as Sneedville, and the Big Ridge area, each are covered by different service providers. Mayor Bailey said the county has already purchased 100 poles for a buildout in the Sneedville area, using funds from a different grant. So, the folks in the Sneedville area will have coverage too. Once the buildout is complete in the Sneedville area, they’ll move to buildout fiber access in the Big Ridge area. The plan is, assuming all the grants are approved, to have the entire map lit up in blue with high-speed internet access available for all Union County residents.

He closed by thanking the Union County commission for approving the allocation of funds. One million went to KUB and the other $1M was spread over the other half of the county which was divided into two sections, $500k going to each of the sections.

There was also lots of other nuggets of information shared by Bailey and Bolas at this event. McWhorter also spoke and shared information related to their role in making reliable high-speed internet possible. You may view a video of the KUB Fiber celebration meeting in its entirety at https://youtu.be/gu6GqPW7n68 .

You can visit KUB Fiber website www.kub.org/fiber to learn more about KUB Fiber service and its availability in your area.