Mary Alice Reporting – A digital divide is seen across the state of Ohio with rural areas suffering the most.
Lack of broadband connectivity was the topic at a Wednesday public meeting, held at the Tuscarawas County Commissioner’s Office, which highlighted the 10 county region of the Ohio Mid-Eastern Government Association (OMEGA), including Carroll, Coshocton, Holmes, and Tuscarawas counties.
Reid Consultant Sean O’Malley provided the update and pointed out that Tuscarawas County has an adequate existing middle mile.
“Basically, to get to the internet, you’ve got these big cross country pipelines that are handling data from big cities and that’s essentially what you’d call the internet and then you’ve got your internet provider offices and you’ve got all the homes. You need to be able to get from the internet to the providers office, and then out into the communities where you’re going to serve. So, the middle mile is essentially the carrier between the local office and the communities. Without middle mile you can’t do what they call the last mile, which is all the lines that actually run down the roads to the individual houses and all the drop cables.”
He says the next step for counties to consider is look at priority areas and ways to fund them such as going after government grants and state funding.
Within the OMEGA region, data shows that of the 78% of populated acres, 33% of the households remain underserved.
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