Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted received the Ohio Broadband and Cable Association’s inaugural Champion of Broadband Award for his work through BroadbandOhio to bring reliable, affordable internet to residents that may not have had it before. Husted says the program has a goal of making Ohio a tech-savvy state.
“When you travel around the state, you talk to people that say ‘Hey, I can’t telework, I can’t get to my doctor I need telehealth, I can’t take online educational programming. You are seeing people being left behind due to lack of access to broadband,” says Husted. “We recognize that and so we began immediately to do an assessment to find out who didn’t have it.”
BroadbandOhio is a private-public partnership, where each sector puts up money to expand access to underserved residents. But the program is just one part of getting Ohioans connected.
“On the federal side through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund or RDOF, we have also been able to deploy about 110,000 addresses through that program. We are building out to those homes and because of the policies of this administration, we are able to deploy and build faster and go farther thanks to the forward-thinking administration we have in Ohio,” says Gary Underwood, the Group Vice President at Charter Communication and OCTA Board Chair.
Hardin County is one of the areas in the state that will see greater and faster broadband access because of this private-public partnership. Around 90 percent of the populated area that doesn’t have high-speed internet, and with around a $15 million investment that is going to change.
“To be able to have this available now to us give us so many more abilities in completing things, not only in the educational area, but the pharmaceutical area, also farming, and like I mentioned before just plain ordering a pizza,” says Fred Rush, Hardin County Commissioner. “We have a little bit more abilities now.”
While Husted says they have done a good job getting Broadband access to more Ohioans, the state has a long way to go to get the available access they would like to see.
