In the Spring of 2020, Kinex, a local Internet provider and licensed Virginia, CLEC that has been providing Internet service in the Central Virginia region for over 20 years, began the process of applying for and bidding on building fiber in the region, through an FCC auction, referred to as RDOF. The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, is a administered through the FCC and allowed qualified bidders throughout the US to competitively bid to build fiber or wireless by US Census Blocks that do not have at least 25Mb download and 3Mb upload speeds. In a sense, it was a reverse auction where providers bid that they could build a network to the latest industry standards at the lowest price possible. During a recent conversation with Jim Garrett, the president of Kinex, remarked that he didn’t want our area to be left dependent to wireless or satellite Internet. “Fiber supports 100Gb fiber links and with multiple fibers we can deploy 400Gb links, why would we settle for 100Mb links via wireless or satellite? Auction winners are still working through the FCC paperwork, but the construction should begin in the fall,” said Garrett.