Ohio Receives $5.3 Million for Broadband Expansion Efforts

By Rachelle Manson, Connect Ohio

Columbus, Ohio — Ohio will receive $5.3 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding for the Connect Ohio initiative to continue its work under the State Broadband Data and Development program. The grant will extend data collection, mapping, and last mile projects throughout the state of Ohio for three additional years. The project consists of four components that the state will implement in order to ensure increased connectivity. The components include: state capacity building, technical assistance, mapping, and address file development.

Connect Ohio will conduct surveys in each of Ohio’s 88 counties to assess the rates of broadband subscription and the barriers to technology adoption. The state’s data development portion of the grant will provide more address-specific data to help residents identify broadband service providers serving their homes. The data will also enable broadband service providers to identify opportunities to deploy new coverage to unserved households.

Connect Ohio will continue the mapping program along with its Every Community Online adoption project, which recently received a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant.

To review the overview of the SBDD grant, please go to: http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/grantee/ohio-office-of-information-technology

Library awarded $2 million Federal Stimulus grant

The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, along with many local partners, has been awarded a Federal Stimulus grant totaling more than $2 million to support a Public Computer Center at the Kent Branch Library and cybermobile that will take broadband access into Lucas County.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur presented an oversized check to Library Director Clyde Scoles at a news conference Sunday (September 12) at Kent Branch Library.

The total cost of the project is $3,090,936. This includes the $2,163,655 in federal money, $68,000 from local partners and $859,281 from the Library (will come from the Building and Repair Fund).

The federal assistance will fund expansion of the Kent Branch Library, acquisition of a mobile computer center, and expanded training for small business owners and local entrepreneurs.

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Ohio receives $4.6M for broadband

WDTN

Hometown Cable Company recently received a $4.6 million Recovery Act broadband award to deploy enhanced broadband service for Ohioans in Darke and Preble counties. The award was announced today by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

"I want to congratulate Hometown Cable for its successful project," Ohio Governor Ted Strickland said. "This award is in line with our work to create job opportunities in rural Ohio by expanding broadband Internet throughout Ohio. We're working to connect every region of Ohio because, like the road projects of the past, enhanced Internet access is a vital part of the infrastructure that our people and businesses need to be successful."

The award will allow Hometown Cable to deploy a countywide, wireless, wide area network with fixed and mobile broadband service throughout Darke and Preble counties. Approximately 49,160 people, 522 businesses and 206 community institutions are expected to benefit

No surprises in new broadband stimulus awards

Connected Planet

With less than three weeks remaining until they are scheduled to have completed the broadband stimulus awards process, the Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Agency yesterday announced a combined total of 53 infrastructure awards.

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COLUMN: Need shown for second stimulus, new industrial policy

Pekin Daily Times

Almost 2 million Illinoisans were expected to have traveled on Labor Day weekend — up 11 percent from 2009 — and 1.8 million of us were driving. Maybe that was because gasoline prices weren’t up as high as people feared — 11 cents per gallon higher than Labor Day 2009, according to the American Automobile Association.

When the U.S. economy’s tank is running on fumes, maybe we see less-bad news as good news: an illusion. Or delusion.

President Obama on Friday finally seemed to show some determination to push for a second stimulus. After 20 months of compromise and capitulation to the Party of No, maybe Democrats are realizing that voters are as annoyed with them being spineless as they are with Republicans being stubborn.

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Internet highway needs more lanes

Minot Daily News

America's insatiable appetite for bandwidth will have technology companies scrambling to build infrastructure in coming years, according to information provided to a legislative committee in Minot, N.D. Thursday.

SRT Communications hosted the Information Technology Committee and alerted legislators and other state officials to some of the trends in the industry.

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Public computer lab opens in 1st of 60 W.Va. fire halls

West Virginia Gazette

The Logan Fire Department on Thursday became the first of 60 fire stations across West Virginia to operate a public computer lab offering free broadband access and basic computer skills training to anyone.

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Obama announces $50 billion in additional infrastructure improvements including broadband

TeleCompetitor

The rural telecom industry is in the midst of a $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program which aims to bring broadband to unserved and underserved communities, while also creating jobs in those same communities. Among the many ‘rubs’ with the current program, some argue $7.2 billion can only put a small dent in a universal broadband goal. Some important people may be listening to that argument.

On Monday, President Obama announced his intention to devote $50 billion to additional infrastructure projects, broadband included.

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U.S. broadband expansion projects in the news

Broadband for America

Broadband access and adoption projects continue to be announced across all fifty states as part of the national broadband stimulus designed to expand high-speed Internet into every American home and business. Here is a look at some of the recent projects getting underway.

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Plan for nationwide free wireless broadband finally shot down

Ars Technica

For four years the Federal Communications Commission tossed the idea around like a beach ball: a coast-to-coast free wireless service across the low end of the 2GHz "AWS-3" band. The service would pay for itself via advertisements and by selling commercial access to various portions of the license area. The company that proposed the plan, M2Z Networks, would commit to building out the project in a decade, and pay five percent of its annual revenue to the United States Treasury.

But on Wednesday M2Z informed the press that the FCC has told the company and its backers that the Commission is dropping the concept, and that is so:

"We gave careful and thorough consideration to the proposal, but ultimately determined that this was not the best policy outcome," Ruth Milkman, chief of the FCC's Wireless Bureau told us. "We remain vigilant in our efforts to facilitate the universal deployment and adoption of broadband, especially through the much-needed reform to the Universal Service Fund."

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Connecting Appalachia project consultant will speak at Cambridge meeting

Coshocton Tribune

CAMBRIDGE -- Earl F. Gohl, newly appointed Appalachian Regional Commission Federal co-chairman will be the featured speaker for the OMEGA Semi-Annual Membership Meeting.

Gohl will talk about ARC programs available to OMEGA's 10-county area, which includes Coshocton, that provide financial assistance to build stronger economies and improvements of the infrastructure needs.

A second guest speaker, Tom Reid, consultant to the Connecting Appalachia project, will addressed to the recently awarded $66 million grant expanding broadband access to 34 counties throughout southeastern and east central Ohio.

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