Richland County looking to be the center of broadband initiative across U.S. 30 in Ohio

Richland County is looking to become the hub of a proposed broadband high speed internet expansion running from Lima to Canton along U.S. Route 30.

Local and state officials announced Tuesday at the county commissioners meeting that information gathering has started for the project, which will benefit economic development, including the Ohio Air National Guard’s new 179th Cyberspace Wing at Lahm Airport in Mansfield.

Amy Elbaor, the assistant chief of Broadband Ohio, a division of the Ohio Department of Development, said officials have put out a request for information to determine, gather and discuss what services are “in the ground” and possible ways to increase high speed internet connectivity in the area. The goal is to build what she called an open access "middle mile" network.

“A middle mile network is a physical infrastructure of high capacity fiber line that is required to enable ‘last mile’ connectivity particularly to homes, businesses and community institutions,” Elbaor said. “If you don’t have middle mile connectivity, we can’t bring that last mile to homes.”

The project will include connections between “point of presence” – existing internet connections - in the Canton and Lima areas to Mansfield. She said the office has been awarded around $793 million through the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program to connect the whole state, noting that now is a good time to begin the project.

Richland County Commissioner Tony Vero said North Central State College President Dr. Dorey Diab approached him a year ago about expanding local broadband in Richland County, and the two met with representatives of Mansfield-Richland Chamber and Economic Development as a local working group and talked with state officials – including Lt. Gov. Jon Husted – about what needed to be done to get a dedicated fiber line to the area.

Diab pointed out at Tuesday’s session that high speed broadband capacity is becoming a needed utility like electricity and water, whether it is for business or community residents.

“As far as the campus is concerned, it’s about teaching, it’s about research, about on-line delivery,” Diab said. “We don’t want to have snow days anymore. Last year we did not because all our faculty and staff have computers and students have access to computers, so if there is a calamity of some sort they are able to access and provide the continuity for teaching, for businesses and things like that.”

Broadband expansion needed for 179th Cyberspace Wing

The most pressing current need is for the 179th Cyberspace Wing to meet initial operating capability requirements by 2025 and to be fully operational by 2027.

Col. Gregg Hesterman, chief conversion officer for the 179th, said the unit requires “significant” broadband capability for its mission and is looking to have secure communication with mission partners in Ohio, including Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton and the Battelle Institute and Ohio State University in Columbus. The deputy wing commander for the 179th, Col. Ken Kmetz, pointed out that the unit is providing citizen airmen who already are learning to do more with IT.

“We’ve got 40-some back already, there are another 80 in school as we speak and we’ll be putting a couple of hundred more people through these schools as well and they’re going to work in the civilian sector and probably closer to Mansfield as we go,” he said. ”Sixty-five percent of our folks live within a 50-mile radius of the base, and it spreads out to other states as well.”

Hesterman pointed out that the Air Force also is looking for a place to locate its pilot training simulation data center and Mansfield is on the list. “This would play a vital role in the future opportunity as well. It’s not just the cyber mission we know is coming,” he said.

Officials noted that 95% of those simulator training jobs would be civilian under the Department of Defense “umbrella.”

Expansion project could attract additional development to the area

Barrett Thomas, economic development director for the Richland Area Chamber, said the cyber wing will help to shift the skill set in the community to more high tech and specific in cyber security.

“Supporting that helps us attract other businesses. We’re in conversations now with other companies that are interested in being in that same area, interested in very large internet connections that need a lot of broadband, a lot of bandwidth and a lot of speed,” he said. “This is certainly a tool that helps us say, 'This is the right place to be instead of any of the other 10 places you’re looking.’”

Vero was asked if having the broadband access will help attract more businesses related to the Intel plant in Licking County. “I don’t think it will hurt,” he replied. “You have a tech company in the Columbus area, and now we’re expanding our broadband capabilities with the cyber wing and Mansfield, Ohio, about an hour away, so I certainly think it will make us more attractive to be part of that Intel umbrella.”

Officials have a Chamber website link that will be open through Feb. 9 where they will accept information from service providers on available infrastructure. The local working group will review the data with state agencies and put together plans to meet the broadband goals and objectives.

Elbaor said the review could lead to requests for proposals to fill the segments of the link all at once or individually or to seek for additional information. “The base objective is to determine what the costs will be,” she said.

No timetable was given on how long the reviews will take or when the design and construction of the broadband connection could begin.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Officials announce U.S. 30 broadband expansion project