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27 <br /> passing all 6,370 homes as detailed in the agreement. The original deadline to serve these homes <br /> was December 31, 2024. <br /> During spring 2024, Lumos began experiencing delays due to construction and budget issues, <br /> and much of the construction activity on the project slowed considerably. Those issues were <br /> resolved, and construction resumed in earnest in late summer 2024. However, those delays did <br /> have an impact on the overall project schedule. Under the original agreement, all 6,370 unserved <br /> and underserved homes identified were to have service available by December 31, 2024. The <br /> delays experienced in the spring have pushed final project completion into 2025. This amendment <br /> establishes a new deadline of December 31, 2025 to serve all homes identified in the original <br /> agreement and to receive the final benchmark payment of$6 million. <br /> The County has complied with the first ARPA deadline by committing ARPA funding through the <br /> contract with Lumos by December 31, 2024. The final deadline to spend the ARPA funding is <br /> December 31, 2026, so this contract amendment does not jeopardize the availability of ARPA <br /> funding. <br /> To date, Lumos has installed 407.5 route miles of fiber in Orange County.This network is available <br /> to 13,964 total homes including 3,236 previously unserved and underserved homes contained in <br /> the agreement. Lumos expects an additional 900 unserved and underserved homes will be added <br /> in December 2024, an additional 750 homes will be added in the first quarter of 2025, and the <br /> final 1,484 contracted homes are expected to have service available upon successful completion <br /> of the project by December 2025. <br /> The original Lumos project did not reach all of the unserved and underserved homes in the <br /> County. These areas have been referred to as doughnut holes where approximately 600 <br /> unserved and underserved homes are located. The County has consulted with the North Carolina <br /> Division of Broadband and Digital Equity, and the most likely funding solution to serve those <br /> homes will be through the Broadband Equity and Deployment (BEAD) Program which has the <br /> goal of reaching 100% of unserved and underserved homes. The funding process for the BEAD <br /> program is expected to begin in Fall of 2025. County staff will provide updates as more details <br /> become available. <br /> Robert Reynolds, Chief Information Officer, reviewed the background information for the <br /> item and made the following presentation: <br /> Slide #1 <br /> Lu <br /> Broa <br /> Pro <br /> ORANGE <br /> N()I(I'E 1 <br /> Slide #2 <br />