Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

More Buckingham County residences will have access to broadband internet by the end of 2020.

Virginia Sen. Mark Peake and Del. Matt Fariss announced plans by Comcast to begin a network expansion project this year in order to extend broadband service to more than 1,800 addresses in Buckingham County.

In a Monday, Aug. 17, press release, officials stated in addition to gigabit internet service, residential customers in Buckingham will have access to a variety of Xfinity services. Businesses in the area will also be able to select from the full suite of Comcast Business products and services, including ethernet network speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second.

Comcast, according to the release, expects to begin to connect these new services by the end of the year.

“This is great news for my friends in Buckingham and I thank Comcast for their initiative,” Peake said. “Access to the internet is no longer a nicety; it is a necessity. We absolutely depend on it. Broadband has become an important part of the commonwealth’s infrastructure and nowhere is that infrastructure weaker than in our rural areas. That’s why I introduced legislation this past session that removed serious legal obstacles to providing internet in rural Virginia.”

Comcast will offer Internet Essentials, a broadband adoption program, providing low-cost broadband service, digital literacy training and discounted computers. The program has connected more than 8 million Americans since its inception in 2011.

“I want to thank Comcast for taking the initiative to bring broadband internet service to the most rural parts of the 59th District in Buckingham County,” Fariss said. “I am very excited to see the innovative Internet Essentials program in place, as it is imperative to be able to help our neighbors who may lack resources to keep their homes connected.”

Similar Comcast expansions are expected in portions of Virginia in the coming months, passing thousands of additional rural addresses. These are the latest in a series of investments Comcast has made over the last few years to extend broadband internet to more than 10,000 addresses in unserved areas of the commonwealth.