Feb. 28—FLOYD COUNTY — Mainstream Fiber Networks recently finished a project to expand broadband access in areas of Floyd County.

In a Feb. 27 news release, the company announced the completion of a project that connected 2,084 households and 389 businesses in Floyd County previously unserved by broadband. The project was partially funded through a Next Level Connections grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

The Next Level grant provided more than $2 million for the $4.1 million Floyd County project. The rest was funded by a local match of more than $1 million from Mainstream and $700,000 from Floyd County, according to Floyd County Commissioner John Schellenberger.

Mainstream previously provided service in Harrison County, but the company's broadband availability map now shows coverage in Franklin Township, Greenville, Floyds Knobs and Georgetown.

Schellenberger described the broadband project as a "huge" deal for Floyd County. The project has been in the works for about three years.

"This project started prior to COVID, and when COVID came, it just turned everybody and everything upside down," Schellenberger said. "You had the schools that went remote, you had businesses that people were working remotely... you had doctors that were doing the virtual [patient visits]. It just turned everything upside down and made people realize how important broadband is to our normal lives."

In the news release, Mainstream CEO Bryan Gabriel thanked Gov. Eric Holcomb and Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch "for recognizing how access to reliable, affordable fiber optic internet service is a game changer for rural and other underserved communities."

"We are honored to play a role in getting more Hoosiers connected and will continue our mission to expand access to broadband infrastructure across Indiana," he said.

Schellenberger described broadband as a "necessity."

"What Mainstream did has helped us quite a bit in Floyd County," he said. "We still have a way to go. I've worked with Spectrum on a couple of projects, and we've even reached out to AT&T, so whichever providers are out there, we're trying to work with them in order to get broadband to the residents of Floyd County."

Schellenberger said the county has been attempting to assemble a geographic information systems (GIS) map to show broadband coverage from all providers and "see exactly where the holes are."

He said there is still a need for further coverage in the Floyds Knobs and Saint Marys communities of Floyd County.

Indiana OCRA Executive Director Denny Spinner said in the news release that Mainstream provided broadband access to more than 5,400 addresses in Floyd and Benton counties through the help of the Next Level Connections grant.

"Access to reliable internet positively impacts a community's quality of life, and we are happy to see these counties be better served," Spinner said.