Smart Poles in Mathews County should be fully usable by next week, when the Mathews Broadband Advisory Board plans a media blitz to provide the public with maps and internet access information.

In addition, Mathews Memorial Library expects to have its Mi-Fi units available for checkout by next week for people who seek to have internet access in their homes.

Broadband consultant Jeff Beekhoo told the advisory board during its meeting Tuesday that most of the Smart Poles were fully equipped and operational. The only thing still missing was information for the portal page, and that would be ready once the board approved the document.

The library’s head of technical services, Greg Lewis, said there was no heat in the building, so employees were working from their homes. This has caused a slight delay to completion of the work required to prepare the Mi-Fi units for use, but they should be ready by the end of the week for next week’s launch.

The board learned that the awarding of the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant the county applied for last year has been delayed until at least April. Beekhoo said the maps submitted with the grants all had to be updated to reflect the award of a huge share of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money to SpaceX, which gives the company the right to develop broadband in many rural localities. While there was initial concern that this could upend current efforts to develop broadband locally, Beekhoo said in an earlier meeting that it would not affect many tracts of land in Mathews County. However, the maps need to be updated before VATI grants can be awarded.

Beekhoo also reported that he had completed a strategic plan for development of countywide broadband for Mathews that he plans to submit to the Mathews County Board of Supervisors for approval on Tuesday during the January board meeting.

At the end of the meeting, Mathews County Planning and Zoning Director Thomas Jenkins, who was hosting the virtual meeting on the Zoom platform, said the entire meeting had been streamed through the Smart Pole that was recently installed in the County Administration parking lot.