Each of the proposals that the county received to expand broadband service in the county takes a different approach.

The commissioners opened three proposals during Tuesday’s work session.

Here’s the heart of the request for proposals: The county is in possession of nearly $1 million in funds from the Appalachian Regional Commission, a 13-state economic development agency that incorporates the Appalachian Region.

The project has a few “required outcomes,” according to the proposal.

Those include “turn-key high speed internet access to Garland VFD, Wrightsville VFD, Sugar Grove VFD, Spring Creek VFD and Spartansburg VFD.”

That connectivity then leads to the second tier of required outcomes — “commercial and residential access to wireless or wired high speed internet services within the Garland, Wrightsville, Sugar Grove, Spring Creek and Spartansburg communities.”

The first proposal reviewed Tuesday was from Youngsville TV, which proposed a $1,494,410 project running fiber to meet those objectives.

A second proposal from Charter Communications also proposed fiber.

“The issue has come up, the government will have to own the network,” Commissioner Tricia Durbin said. “They’re (Charter) having a difficult time with that.”

Total cost of that proposal was $4.1 million with a request of $3 million to build the network per the RFP.

The third proposal was from Connxx, Inc., SpyPacket Networks.

Durbin said their proposal highlights 20 years of experience in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and Maryland in this space.

That proposal is for “fixed-wireless coverage,” she explained, with costs for the sites, ground equipment, last-mile configuration and soft costs. The total for the fixed-wireless is $1.629 million with a $1.750 million cost for new fiber construction.

Durbin explained that the next step will be to compare the proposals to the RFP to “make sure they all match what we had put in proposal.”

She added that the county also received correspondence from Breezeline, formerly Atlantic Broadband, that did not bid on this project but expressed a willingness to explore future grant offerings to help provide expanded service.

Durbin said the deadline to award a contract is later this month.

She said the county will continue to think “through how best to approach broadband infrastructure above and beyond the ARC grant we’ll be administering.”