Summit County invests $2.5M toward bringing broadband services to underserved communities

Summit County will spend up to $2.5 million over the next two years to design the Summit Connects high-bandwidth fiber optic system to link all county government centers with hopes that broadband services can be offered to underserved communities.

County Council recently approved a contract with The Thrasher Group, a Canton-based engineering firm, with a subcontract for engineering firm DLZ Corp. for the design of a gigabyte-capacity network that would link all 31 Summit County government jurisdictions with an estimated 125-mile fiber optic ring.

The firms are to complete their design for the new system by the end of 2024.

Expanding broadband access in underserved parts of Summit County

According to BroadbandOhio and the Ohio Department of Development, 11% of Summit County’s populated area lacks access to minimum levels of download and upload speed of 25 and 3 megabytes per second, respectively.

Fairlawn will operate the Summit Connects system through its own municipal broadband utility, Fairlawn Gig, established in 2014. Fairlawn Mayor William Roth said those areas include low-income city neighborhoods, as well as some sparsely populated rural areas.

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"These companies have business models, and I get it: They want to serve the Greens and Hudsons of the world, but they don't want to go to some parts of Akron and they don't want to go to some parts of Barberton because they don't see a return on their investment," Roth said.

Summit Connects will provide a broadband backbone to give communities a chance to serve those areas. In some cases, the communities may choose to extend the service on their own, as Fairlawn did when it started Fairlawn Gig.

"We went to all the companies in 2013 and 2014 and said, 'We'll write a check; we want better service,' and they either couldn't do it, or wouldn't do it," he said. "The idea is now with technology, we can actually raise the bar countywide to help with service, with good competition. We're not here to take out all the private companies. We're actually looking to partner with them to improve the services."

Roth said the gigabyte service will be available thanks to the ability to bundle hundreds of fiber optic cables together in one line, vastly increasing capacity to a level that would be impossible to overwhelm with today's technology.

How Summit County plans to use the system

Fairlawn and the county have already set up a Council of Governments agency to manage the system and data center.

Roth said the Summit Connects system will be the most reliable means of communication in the event of emergencies.

"The idea is all 31 governments in the county will be interconnected and we'll all be in on the ring so if something happens, God forbid, outside of the county we'll still be able to take care of ourselves. It's safety driven, but also, what we're also looking for is once it's done is working like a public-private partnership to help communities if they want to expand fiber optic networks in their own communities."

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Roth said the system will connect all county dispatch centers and emergency services, which currently are connected by "a whole mishmash" of systems.

"It's more reliable this way," he added. "Every dispatch center will be connected, every fire department will be connected to the fiber ring, every police department, so the communications will go by the fiber route ... it's faster and vastly more reliable."

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In June, the county had estimated the fiber ring and data center to be operational by 2025.

How will Summit Connects system be funded?

Overall, the network is expected to cost as much as $75 million. About $35 million for the network's construction is slated to come from $105.1 million the county received through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Another $20 million in ARPA funds is to be used for community broadband investments to support broadband delivery in underserved areas of the county to enhance public education, health and criminal justice.

About $22 million in county funds would go to build a data center to manage the system in Fairlawn.

Eric Marotta can be reached at emarotta@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarottaEric.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Summit County to invest millions on broadband services for underserved