How a $43.1 million state grant turned into trenchers on Bastrop County roads — and when the fiber is expected to reach the county's 10,000+ unserved homes. The facts, dated, with the deadlines that actually bind the build.
For years, much of rural Bastrop County was unserved — no wired broadband at all, or speeds that didn't meet the federal definition. That's the gap the state set out to close. In 2025 the Texas Broadband Development Office awarded grants under its BOOT II program ("Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas"), and Bastrop County landed one of the significant ones.
Highline acquires the Smithville / Bastrop County operation of Rural Telecommunications of America (RTA), along with fiber assets in Bastrop, Fayette and Lavaca counties. This gives Highline a local operating base — the Smithville office — from which to run the build.
Bastrop County announces the $43.1 million Texas Broadband Development Office (BOOT II) grant to bring fiber to more than 10,000 previously unserved homes and businesses. Highline is named as the company building and installing the network.
Trenching, boring and aerial fiber work spreads across the county, town by town and road by road. Highline runs sales and operations from 125 Kellar Rd, Unit C-2, Smithville. Availability is determined address by address as the fiber passes each street.
The grant-funded build is expected to be substantially complete in late 2026. Because it's state-funded, it's bound by a hard deadline: all Texas BOOT II projects must be finished by December 31, 2026.
The December 31, 2026 completion requirement is the most useful fact in this whole timeline, because it's not a marketing promise — it's a condition of the state money. Grant-funded builds have real accountability behind them, which is why "late 2026" is a credible target rather than the perpetually-slipping "coming soon" that unfunded expansions offer.
What it does not mean is that every address lights up on the same day. Fiber is built outward along routes; your street's turn depends on where you sit relative to the build path. Towns with existing infrastructure (Smithville, Bastrop, Elgin) and the Highline operating base tend to come earlier; the most remote county addresses often come later in the schedule. The only authoritative answer for your address is Highline's checker — track it on the coverage page.
Highline (officially Highline Fast Internet, a brand of ITC Broadband Holdings) is a rural fiber-to-the-home provider operating in Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska and Texas. Its lineage traces back to Interstate Telephone Company, founded in West Point, Georgia in 1896 — this is a company with deep roots in serving small and rural communities, not a startup. Its model is to build new 10G-capable fiber in underserved areas and to acquire established small-town networks (as it did with RTA here). Highline holds roughly $138 million across three Texas BOOT II grants spanning 13 counties, and targets around 50,000 homes nationwide by the end of 2026. Bastrop County is one piece of that larger Texas footprint.
Bastrop County's local Highline office: 125 Kellar Rd, Unit C-2, Smithville, TX 78957 — 512-360-4273. Highline sales: 1-888-212-0054. Availability: highlinefast.com.
Why the county is racing to build infrastructure ahead of a population surge.
Community-by-community status across Bastrop County, updated as the fiber advances.
Coverage & address check Plans & pricing