Rural, urban areas of Ohio seek broadband cash

COLUMBUS, Ohio — State broadband planners say Ohio’s unique mix of rural, Appalachian and poor urban communities gives it a strong chance of securing federal stimulus dollars to pay for better Internet access.

In the first round of bidding for $7.2 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees, both in-state and out-of-state groups asked for millions to help underserved populations in the state get connected. Word on the winners is expected in early November.

Tom Fritz, executive director of the Connect Ohio broadband initiative, said efforts over the past two years to assess broadband’s reach into various areas of the state gave Ohio’s applicants added ammunition.

Internet access remains a problem in urban neighborhoods crippled by poverty and lack of education, isolated rural counties, and mountainous areas where rugged terrain and sparse populations make laying cable expensive, he said.

“We’ve got data that a lot of other states do not have that can allow applicants to show need demographically and geographically,” Fritz said. “We’ve also had discussions across every county in Ohio, which has given us a sense about what communities feel is their highest priority.”

Connect Ohio, a public/private entity that grew out of Gov. Ted Strickland’s creation of a statewide broadband initiative in 2007, has applied for two sums: $4.5 million to equip a network of public computing centers and $7.5 million for an outreach program to reach the 4.3 million Ohioans who don’t subscribe to in-home Internet service.

Fritz said it’s important to the state’s economic future to get residents connected, and Connect Ohio wants to spread the word about how a monthly Internet outlay can return more money in time and efficiency.

Strickland, who grew up in Ohio’s Appalachian region, also has an appreciation for the difficulty of extending broadband access into the state’s more isolated regions, Fritz said.

“It’s really expensive to lay a broadband network over mountains and hills and valleys and dales,” he said. “It’s heavy lifting without this (stimulus) money to get investment into those areas where investments don’t make a lot of financial business sense.”

As it grappled with a downturn in tax revenues, Ohio cut funding to Connect Ohio and to Strickland’s overall broadband initiative, Fritz said. So the organization is hopeful it can get some of that money back through stimulus funds.

But Connect Ohio is among dozens of entities that affect the state and that are competing for the money.

Some requests are small, such as the $37,990 the Ritter Public Library in Vermilion wants to expand its computer center from nine computers and eight word processors to 40 Internet-enabled computers.

Other requests are large. For example, County.com asked for nearly $362 million to extend online services to county governments in Ohio and the 49 other states. Case Western Reserve University asked for $26 million to extend broadband to 5,000 households and businesses in the “profoundly disadvantaged” University Circle area.

Agristar Global Networks asked for about $30 million to provide satellite broadband service to 1.2 million farms and ranches in the contiguous 48 states that are not equipped for the Internet or have dial-up service only. Colorado-based EchoBlue Rural Broadband asked for $530 million to extend infrastructure to rural America.

Other applications seek money to provide broadband services nationwide to the deaf, to equip black colleges and universities with broadband, and to outfit libraries or other public places with more computers.

On The Net:

Connect Ohio: www.connectohio.org

Ohio’s Stimulus Web Site: www.recovery.ohio.gov