Home

The non-profit Thundercloud, Inc. in Huntington, WV is launching a well-crafted and ambitious initiative to lay a high-speed, 11.36-mile, 144-count, underground broadband fiber backbone connecting the Village of Barboursville to the heart of downtown Huntington, WV, and deploy a robust last-mile, underground fiber ring linking businesses and anchor institutions to gigabit-speed infrastructure. The Thundercloud broadband fiber project will focus on service to businesses, anchor institutions, and civic hubs, but can serve residences in the greater Huntington area as well.

This Huntington-focused project will also connect a key underserved segment to a broader plan for better and faster broadband access in the nine-county Advantage Valley region between the state capital of Charleston and the distressed Wayne County area.

Through this project, the Thundercloud Broadband Deployment will achieve a top goal of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, and a core pillar of Huntington's America's Best Communities strategy to be West Virginia's first "Gigabit City". Thundercloud, Inc. has convened the leading Chief Technology Officers from the community, collaborated with the West Virginia Broadband Council and state technology and economic development leadership, and identified a strategy for public-private partnership to attract private infrastructure investment and development.

This public-nonprofit-private partnership will provide service to 500+ businesses at levels that meet and far exceed the minimum broadband speeds of 100 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) upload and 100 Mbps download symmetrical services ("100/100"). But further, Thundercloud's approach will also serve civic, educational, health and institutional users in a financially sustainable approach that meets public-benefit needs and economic development goals that would not otherwise be reached.