The Boyle County Industrial Park is now labeled a “fiber-ready” location by AT&T, designation leaders say will benefit efforts to recruit businesses to the park.

Hollie Spade, director for external affairs for AT&T Kentucky, presented a “fiber-ready” sign to Marty Gibson, chair of the Danville-Boyle County Economic Development Partnership, during the EDP’s board meeting Wednesday morning.

“Anything you can do to promote the industrial park and the community as being connected and as having available internet at speeds and capacities that are necessary to do business is helpful,” Spade said. “So, this is kind of a way to promote your industrial park … and also it gives us an opportunity to let folks know we are in your community and we are here as part of this program.”

The fiber-ready designation is intended to signify to prospective businesses that sites in the industrial park have easy access to high-speed internet access over fiber-optic cables.

“We have been working for some time with AT&T corporate representatives to secure this designation … for marketing purposes,” EDP President Jody Lassiter wrote in his month executive committee report. “… The Boyle County Industrial Foundation (which owns the developable land in the industrial park) approved an agreement with AT&T in July that will allow EDP to market the industrial park as ‘AT&T Fiber Ready’ with use of the AT&T corporate logo. This provides another important feature to promote the park to new industrial prospects.”

Spade told EDP board members they can also now use AT&T’s logo in things like social media posts to promote their industrial park. She also noted AT&T has fiber-optic cables present in every Kentucky county and if a business wants fiber-optic internet access, there isn’t a question of whether it’s possible, just how much it would cost.

Spade also provided an update to EDP board members about AT&T’s presence in Boyle County. The company has four towers in the more rural areas of the county that now provide wireless internet access, and 3,000 living units in Boyle have access to fiber internet from AT&T.

“So, we’re here. We’re in your community. We’re a member of the chamber. We’re participating with the Crossroads economic development regional group,” she said. “We’re trying to do what we can to let you all know we’re here to help.”