SugarGroveVA

I saw this topic and wanted to provide some information about our community and current lack of service. Relevant to the information that's already stated in this forum thread, Troutdale is located approximately 8 miles from Sugar Grove on the other side of a mountain. The tower that was recently turned on at Volney reaches almost to the Grayson/Smyth County line at the top of the mountain. Only US Cellular customers can get service from this tower. After several months of research, it seems that a need to expand communications along the route from River North Prison to the Marion Correctional facility was the initial reason for the placement of this tower. On the other end of things in Smyth County however, there seems to have been some sort of lack of communication on this front. It seems that back in 2007 both Smyth and Grayson counties were working together to establish cellular service. Somewhere along 2011 or 2012 the two counties ceased to work together. Grayson County established a cellular tower that covers their rural area while the Sugar Grove community continues to be unserved. Our community has been working closely with Delegate Jeff Campbell's office on these efforts. This has brought some promising resources to the table but we still aren't there yet. We need the cooperation of the Smyth County Board of Supervisors as well as providers in these efforts in order to make it happen. We have also been researching funding for towers, anything to interest providers to come to the area. At this time, Smyth County School Board has entered into an agreement with Milestone Communications to market all county owned properties to providers. Sugar Grove Combined School is the only property in our community listed on this agreement but it is worth mentioning here just in case someone at Sprint is reading this and may be interested. At this point, I do not feel that our BoS is doing everything they can to help our community. Their energy and focuses have never been on the Sugar Grove community. Sprint did contact me with a form for private property owners who were interested in submitting information about properties they have available for leasing. I believe that we should have cellular service provided to our community for safety reasons if nothing else. We are situated between two mountains. This is a bad situation if you happen to have a break down or an accident. There is no access to phones along the way. Sugar Grove doesn't even have a pay phone anymore! As far as service available in either direction, we are within 5 miles either way of limited services. We can cross the top of Nick's Creek and get service or drive 5-8 miles to Troutdale and get US Cellular only. Our community website and Facebook page have additional information about our efforts and can be viewed at www.sugargroveva.com and www.facebook.com/SugarGroveVA