Broadband Expansion Continues in Belmont County

Internet access should not be taken for granted here in the Upper Ohio Valley, and that was placed on display during the pandemic when local schoolchildren were not permitted in their classrooms.

Instead, those students were remediated to their respective homes, and in East Ohio and the Northern Panhandle, a troubling amount of them were left without access. While 11 percent of pupils in Ohio County were without broadband access and remote learning opportunities during portions of the 2020 and 2021 school years, the rate was far higher in Marshall and Belmont counties.

That percentage continues to decrease, however, in Belmont County.

“The broadband development in Belmont County is something we have continually worked on so more and more people can have the access if they want the access, and this is an initiative that we’ve had in the forefront since before the pandemic,” explained Belmont County Commissioner J.P. Dutton. “Initially, we went to the bigger companies like AT&T and Comcast to see how we could assist them with the development and those conversations didn’t amount to much at all, but it led us to Ohio Gig and ultimately to the development that’s going on now.

“Part of the ongoing conversations involved our school principals and superintendents so we could pinpoint areas in Belmont County where broadband was needed most, and we also worked with our state and federal governments because we knew there were access grants and programs we could participate in,” he continued. “Once we started to emerge out of the pandemic, a lot of conversations were taking place and we were able to get started with expanding access.”

Ohio Gig now is working on seven different development projects in Ohio, including Warren and Clinton counties.

“Ohio Gig is a company that has performed work in several areas of the state, and we arrived to the point with them where they started installing fiber optic cables underground instead of up on the poles,” Dutton said. “They do that to avoid outages that happen most often because of weather, so these areas will be more reliably connected because the infrastructure is far more protected than other areas.

“A low-interest, $2 million loan was made between Ohio Gig and the Belmont County Port Authority, so there is that payback process that will take place and that’s OK because that means those dollars for be used not once but twice for infrastructure in the county,” he explained. “Some people have asked what happens if  they fail to pay it back and my answer is that if that’s what happens, we still will have broadband fiber optic cable spread throughout areas in the county that’s not going anywhere.”

Private Sector Reaction

Ohio Gig operates community-based ISPs, or “internet service providers,” to deliver a high-quality of experience to its users, and today regions in Ohio in the southwestern, west central, eastern central, and northeast areas continue to expand to new customers each month.

In Belmont County, the product is “high-speed, low-latency and high-quality Internet service along with voice and video options,” according to the Belmont Gig website.

“I think this is going to be a great project in Belmont County and one reason is because, as this project with Ohio Gig continues, we’re seeing reactions from companies like Comcast that are now using their resources in Belmont County to expand their access. And there are other providers in the county doing the same,” Dutton reported. “There’s that saying – ‘A rising tide lifts all boats’ – and that’s what is happening in Belmont County as far as broadband.

“And we think have the fiber optic cables in the ground is a better product that has those lines on the poles, and with the loan model replacing the grant model, it allows the work to be done at a quicker and more consistent pace,” he said. “And that broadband access allows for so more education for our young people in those areas, and for economic development in those areas, as well.”

Not only does that mean more Belmont County middle and high school students will gain home-based access to the internet, but other types of infrastructure expansion could follow, too.

“For a long time, when we have discussed infrastructure, we were talking about water, sewer, electric, and roads … the backbones. But now broadband is a part of every one of those conversations because that connectivity is just as important to business today,” Dutton said. “It’s been a challenge throughout the country, and Belmont County is no different, but we are making progress here.

“It’s about closing that gap and that’s what we’re working on in Belmont County,” the commissioner said. “And while we are making strides with broadband, I’d like to see the same take place with natural gas in our county for both residential and commercial services. That’s another difficult and expensive process, but we’re working on it to see how far we can take it.”