Holmes County explores investing in broadband future
Holmes County is pursuing ways to unlock the county’s ability to create better broadband through many of its rural areas. A recent meeting with Ashley Karlen, senior manager of government affairs for Charter Communications, provided insight to the possibilities.
One of the complaints the Holmes County commissioners continue to get is the lack of quality broadband services in some of its more rural areas throughout the county.
Recently, the board of Holmes County commissioners met with a representative who provided insight into the possibilities of expanding the county’s broadband capabilities.
Ashley Karlen, senior manager of government affairs for Charter Communications, also known as Spectrum, which is the branding service for the Charter Communications, met with the commissioners to define ways the county could improve its broadband system.
Charter Communications is one of the leading broadband providers in the United States, and Karlen said pre-COVID the federal government created the Rural Vision Opportunity Fund, a program created to provide gap funding to help broadband companies build improved broadband in rural areas.
She said during that process, her company was fortunate to receive major funding, and that will allow Charter Communications to invest $556 million into improving rural broadband expansion.
She said only one out of every five of those dollars comes from the deferral grant while the other 80% of the funding for the project comes from Charter Communications.
“We’re making a pretty sizable investment in providing better quality of broadband technology to the homes and small businesses in rural areas,” Karlen said. “We’re looking at about 110,000 locations here in the state of Ohio.”
Some of those locations are in Holmes County, which should aid those clamoring for better broadband capabilities.
Karlen said the current areas being looked at include the townships of Berlin, Clark, Hardy, Killbuck, Knox, Mechanic, Monroe, Paint, Richland, Salt Creek, Walnut Creek and Washington.
“It’s about 2,254 locations, and we received $2.29 million in RVOF funds, so we will be making about an $11 million investment,” Karlen said. “Right now we are working to secure all of the necessary permits.”
She said when Charter Communications builds, it generally follows utility lines, so the majority of the investment will be aerial work, connecting to existing utility poles and streaming the fiber out of existing poles.
Anyone connecting through the company would have access to phones, internet and Spectrum streaming services.
Karlen said the company works closely with area utility companies to make sure all of the work is acceptable.
She said once they started the build to residential areas, customers would have access to several Spectrum packages. She said they are attempting to close the internet divide to make packages more affordable.
In seeking to land these rural areas in which they can expand, Spectrum had to bid against other provider companies.
In order to create growth areas around the nation, the federal government traveled across the U.S. to determine block census groups where growth could be created.
The group blocks were put out for bid by the federal government through the process of reverse auction, so any provider could win a bid by becoming the lowest bidder.
Commissioner Ray Eyler said many years ago the commissioners explored the opportunity to create better broadband access down the state Route 83 corridor toward Clark and Killbuck.
He said that didn’t take place, but the county was able to extend west from West Holmes High School to Nashville and down toward Danville, but the state Route 83 corridor never took flight because the company proposing the deal ran out of funding.
Karlen said that will not be the case.
“We are committed to build to every single census block that we won,” Karlen said.
She said the process has already begun, with the company winning bids in 61 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The initial work began in Guernsey County and has extended to Noble, Muskingum, Coshocton and Knox counties.
“We’re coming your way,” Karlen said. “It takes time, but we are absolutely committed.”
She said the project started in January. They expect to be completely done covering all census blocks in three to five years, and that includes counties all over Ohio.
“Once we start building, we want to be as transparent as possible,” Karlen said. “I’m here to be the county’s face and a contact. We were excited to make this contact with (the commissioners) to start the process.”
Karlen said the company has worked closely with the county engineer and township trustees to make sure they have all right-of-way and easement permits needed should they need to go underground with any of the fiber.
“That’s part of being transparent,” Karlen said.
The commissioners also explored how Spectrum would work with repairs and outages due to storms and other problems, and Karlen said they work with local subcontractors to ensure timely resolution to any issues.