Still live in an area with limited internet? Not far from my house is an area with no wired high speed internet options, no cable or fiber either. Now Ohio and California are working to help people without high speed internet service by investing a total of $331.5 million to expand broadband internet.
The Ohio Residential Broadband Expansion Grant (ORBEG) program has awarded $94.5 million to Charter’s Spectrum and Brightspeed to offer high speed internet to 35,000 Americans in 23 counties.
This comes as the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved $237 million in grants to bring high speed internet to 21 projects around California to help bring high speed internet to more customers. With this, AT&T, one of the companies getting help, says it will bring fiber to 7,500 residential and business locations.
It gives you an idea of just how crazy high the cost is to bring high speed internet to rural America. Unlike highly developed areas, rural America can mean running cable for miles to hook up just a few customers. This results in high costs and low returns. Because of this both state and federal governments have been working to invest.
Increasingly more and more areas are getting fiber and other high speed internet options to help close the digital divide.