RiverStreet’s $20M Fiber Build in Bedford County, Va., Delayed Until 2026

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2025 – More than 3,000 homes and businesses in Bedford County, Va. were supposed to be online by October under a $20 million broadband contract with RiverStreet Networks. 

But delays tied to a railroad-crossing permit, changes to federal grant rules, and newly added projects pushed the timeline back to June 2026. 

The extension came as a surprise to county officials, who said they only learned of the holdup after residents started calling.

The original three-year contract between Bedford and RiverStreet launched in 2022 with an October 2025 completion date. But, RiverStreet recently secured a nine-month state-approved extension under the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative program, administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

RiverStreet’s vice president of marketing Mike Meinel said the company had to factor in new opportunities for large grants. 

“This necessitated reevaluating and expanding the VA Build project due to its growth and the size of our current construction efforts,” Meinel said. “This effort was to benefit the counties by extending fiber to many more citizens.”

Bedford County officials have said they want the project completed before next year. The rural county near Lynchburg is home to 80,000 residents.

“Our citizens have been waiting for a number of years for broadband,” Bedford County Administrator Robert Hiss told 10 News. “Waiting another nine months, we don’t believe is necessary. We’re doing our best as a county organization to encourage RiverStreet to complete their project prior to next June.”

About half the project area currently remains without service, including parts of Huddleston, New London and the Leesville Lake region. RiverStreet said it is still waiting for a third party to approve railroad-crossing work and that, once cleared, its crews can quickly connect nearly 700 additional locations.

Other providers have struggled to complete projects in county

The setback comes as other providers – ZiTel, Shentel and Verizon among them – near completion of separate VATI-funded projects in Bedford County. Taken together, those deployments will extend fiber to between 15,000 and 20,00 addresses. 

Speaking at an event in August celebrating the county’s gains in broadband deployment, Hiss said that his area learned two lessons in that process: “Fiber is king” and “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” when it comes to internet providers.

The tension between Bedford officials and Riverstreet echoes another breakdown in Virginia earlier this year, when Culpeper County terminated its contract with All Points Broadband over extended deadlines and escalating costs.

As VATI projects fueled by pandemic-era federal funding reach completion, attention was shifting to what the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program could deliver. Roughly 2,855 Bedford County locations are slated for BEAD support, though those awards will not be final until they receive approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.