Amid legal battle, Kentucky’s middle-mile network faces uncertain future

Nearly five months after Kentucky internet service providers received a 30-day disconnection notice from KentuckyWired, the state’s open-access middle-mile broadband network is still online — but its fate hinges on an ongoing legal battle.

The disconnection notices went out in mid-April after the Kentucky Communications Network Authority, or KCNA, terminated its contract with Accelecom in January. Accelecom, the private telecom firm the state selected in 2021 to manage the sale of last-mile services from the 3,200-mile fiber optic network, was accused of breaching its contract with the state by also selling its own last-mile services, which the state alleged presents a conflict of interest, kicking off litigation regarding the potential contract breaches.

The state still has not found a new administrator. Another hearing is scheduled in the Franklin County, Kentucky, Circuit Court for Wednesday.

Kentucky State Sen. Gex Williams on Friday introduced legislation that would extend the lifespan of KentuckyWired and reorganize the authority of KCNA to the Commonwealth’s Office of Technology — effectively disbanding KCNA and terminating its employees, including Doug Hendrix, KCNA’s executive director.

Williams’ legislation would also establish a new board that would provide oversight to management of KentuckyWired’s operations. All of the funds that had been provided to KCNA would return to the state’s general fund.

“In the Information Technology Oversight Committee, we’ve had a lot of testimony about the concern for customers. There’s a lot of things going with lawsuits, with contracts, with all sorts of things, but customers are the focus,” Williams said during an interim committee hearing on Friday. “We had representatives from [the Wireless] Internet Service Provider Association that has tens, if not hundreds of thousands of rural customers who face disconnection on a 30-days notice… This is a holding pattern until the audit comes in next summer, so we can just maintain our customer connectivity.”

The network, which kicked off as a public-private partnership in 2013, serves rural and other hard-to-reach areas in Kentucky, along with several state and local government offices, universities and other critical service providers. While the network is still online, rural ISPs worry about what the network’s uncertain future could mean for Kentuckians.

TJ Scott, the chief operating officer and general manager of Kentucky ISP Broadlinc, testified before the Kentucky Information Technologies Oversight Committee this month regarding concerns about the network going dark amid the search for a new administrator. He testified alongside Steve Schwerbel, director of state advocacy at the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, and John Gill, owner of the rural ISP Kentucky Fi.

“This is going to affect rural Kentuckians, real taxpayers — people in rural Kentucky will either lose service or their service quality will be affected drastically,” Scott told StateScoop. “And we wanted our legislators to know what that really meant to the end user [is] this is affecting taxpayers in Kentucky and people who need need broadband service.”

Scott’s company, Broadlinc, serves just over 30,000 locations in northern Kentucky. He asked that the state consider “pumping the brakes” on finding a new administrator for the network, and urged KCNA to do everything it can to ensure a continuity of service while it conducts the search process and deals with its court battle with Accelecom. Accelecom declined to provide a statement before publication.

“At the end of the day, our customers are stuck in the middle of this argument. … They’ve started an RFP process to find a new middle buyer or provider — and again, nobody has ruled that this has to happen yet — so we’re just asking the state to take a slower approach with this, make sure that there is continuity of services throughout the whole process, no matter what happens,” Scott continued.

Scott said it falls on the state and KCNA to ensure continuity. The agency, in its 30-day disconnection notice sent out in April, claimed Accelecom was responsible for ensuring customers did not lose internet service.

StateScoop could not locate a request for proposals for a new KentuckyWired administrator on the state’s eProcurement website, indicating KCNA hasn’t begun the process. According to the KCNA website, it held a meeting last May inviting ISPs, regional carriers and network operators to help draft an RFP. KCNA did not respond to requests for additional information.

“My final statement to the last month was, ‘Listen, if the if the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and the toll collecting service that they have a contract with — which collects tolls for the bridges in Louisville — if they have a dispute, they’re not going to close the bridges because there’s some dispute,” Scott said. “They’re going to find a new toll collector and keep the bridges open in the process, right? And that’s really all we’re asking them to do with the KentuckyWired network: Keep the network running, keep everybody connected.”

“There are ways to do this. You just need to get everybody at the table and make it happen,” he continued.