When schools started virtual classes last year, some families in the Berkley community had to take their kids to the local McDonald's to use its public Wi-Fi. Even cellphone hot spots didn't work in that area. That's why a fiber Internet expansion in the rural community east of U.S. 431 between Owens Cross Roads and Hampton Cove means so much, retired NHTC Engineering Manager Dave Ramski says.

NHTC extended its fiber network to the Berkley community through a grant from the Alabama Broadband Accessibility Fund, which exists to assist broadband providers in making high-speed Internet available in unserved areas of the state. NHTC received a $108,527 grant and used it to provide access to 188 households, three businesses and an anchor, which is the Berkley Community Center.

Even though the area isn't far from the bustling Hampton Cove community, it's considered an unserved area because no other Internet providers extended service there. The area also had inadequate cellphone service, due in part to the terrain near the base of the mountain. Now, residents can have better cellphone service by accessing Wi-Fi calling, Ramski says.

"The residents in that area have not had access to high-speed Internet," Ramski says. "They only had access to Internet with very low speeds and it took forever to download anything."

Those factors played a role in qualifications for the grant, which Gov. Kay Ivey awarded last year to provide more access to high-speed Internet services. The specifications allowed NHTC to apply for the grant to serve the Berkley community, even though it is just outside the NHTC service area and would be eligible for service from other providers willing to extend to the area.

Ivey awarded 20 grants totaling $9.5 million to provide broadband access in rural areas without adequate service across the state. "Broadband has always been a priority of my administration, but the COVID-19 pandemic compounded just how necessary these services are to residents in rural and underserved areas of Alabama," the governor said in a news release when announcing the grants. "Along with the help of broadband providers, we are making more steady progress in ensuring that Alabamians will have the option to receive these services.

The grants came through the Alabama Broadband Accessibility Fund, which the Alabama Legislature created and Ivey signed into law. It came about to assist broadband providers in extending high-speed Internet service for households, businesses and community anchors in unserved areas of the state or in areas lacking minimum threshold service. A community anchor is an establishment like a police or fire department, city hall, library, school or medical facility.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs administered the program. "Seeing the progress made in supplying high-speed Internet availability is certainly gratifying and rewarding for Gov. Ivey and for ADECA," ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said in the news release. "ADECA is honored to be a part of this program that is having life-changing and life-improving impacts in rural Alabama."