$300 a month is what Monroe County therapist Krissy Kearns pays for Frontier and Starlink to keep telehealth sessions running, yet outages still interrupt care for high-risk patients.
11% of West Virginia households still lack broadband subscriptions because mountainous terrain, aging infrastructure and utility disputes have slowed service despite hundreds of millions in federal and state expansion funding.
Monroe County residents say the gap forces costly workarounds: some rely on hotspots or signal boosters, while others pay about $170 monthly for satellite service even on fixed incomes.
Thousands of county homes and businesses are slated for connection through projects involving providers including Gigabeam and Citynet, but officials say permitting, protected land and pole replacement have delayed construction.
$119 million was won in a state settlement against a provider with poor service history, yet lawmakers this year advanced no new customer-protection measures such as outage credits or fines.