Some Shelby County residents seeing ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ on internet issues

Discussions of contracts with cable providers prompted resident complaints during the Oct. 10 Shelby County Commission meeting. Those complaints, however, were not focused on cable issues — they were concerns regarding a lack of high-speed internet options in some areas.

“Our neighborhood has DSL,” said Dunnavant Square resident Robin Dickenson, one of the individuals who spoke up at the commission meeting. “It’s extremely limited, and you cannot fully stream movies. We have spotty internet service, and if too many people are pulling from that ‘trunk,’ it doesn’t move at all.”

Dickenson lives in a townhome in Dunnavant Square, a development that recently finished construction, about eight years after she moved into the neighborhood. While the neighborhood has DSL, Dickenson’s home does not. Even if it did, however, she said she still would have spoken up on the issue.

“It’s obviously not enough for the number of homes in there and not enough in today’s day and age, where high-speed internet is a basic service,” she said. Dickenson’s two children have had to rely on mobile hot spots and data on their cellphones to stream the videos and access Google documents required for class. 

Despite a nearly eight-year wait, Dunnavant Square is set to get AT&T high speed internet in 2017. Dickenson received an email from Terry Williams, the regional director for AT&T, saying construction on internet infrastructure would begin toward the start of the year.

“We are so very excited about that,” Dickenson said. “I think she [Williams] was excited to be able to share that news because it’s been eight years, that’s a long time. And I know it’s been longer for other neighborhoods.”

Some residents, however, might have to wait longer than 2017. 

“For Lakeshore Cove, AT&T is examining the area,” said Reginald Holloway, manager of community services for Shelby County.

Terry Stiles Harrison, a Realtor and resident of Lakeshore Cove near Mt Laurel, also spoke at the Oct. 10 meeting and said she has been disappointed in how the situation has been handled. She said she planned to reach out to her county commissioner to discuss changing the contracts with cable and internet providers. Smaller neighborhoods should be considered for these services, she said, so she hopes to get the number of minimum houses changed.

“The developers, they get attention because maybe they’re going to put in 800 homes over 10 years,” Stiles Harrison said, noting smaller developments do not get that attention.

Internet, however, is not covered in the county’s contract with cable providers. Neither is phone service.

“The internet is not a regulated service. Therefore our franchise agreement does not cover anything that is not covered by the FCC,” Holloway said. “If it isn’t being regulated by the FCC, we can’t mandate it if we don’t have the authority to regulate it.”

However, Holloway will mediate or facilitate discussions with cable and internet providers alike. It is part of his job to handle those issues, and he said he encourages everyone to reach out to him and to their service provider.

“I think it’s very important for you, me, for everybody to have someone to turn to,” he said. “We might [as individuals] hit a brick wall, we can’t go any further. But to have someone else to intervene and understand what your situation is, I think that’s very important.”

While Stiles Harrison said she hopes to see a greater change in contracts to help her neighborhood as well as her clients, Dickenson said she is just glad to have hope for future coverage.

“We’re aware that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.