An initiative to bring internet to northern Butler County is taking the next step.<\/p>\n
Armstrong hosted a groundbreaking event at Slippery Rock University yesterday to celebrate the $16 million public private partnership known as the \u201cAccessible Broadband for Children\u201d program that will bring internet service to underserved areas in the Moniteau and Slippery Rock school districts.<\/p>\n
The plans have been in the works for years and Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche is thrilled to see this project come to fruition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not often that you get to see something that started out as a plan and study, actually work its way through,\u201d Osche said. \u201cTo see that from start to finish, it doesn\u2019t happen that often, especially in government. To have that public private partnership with Armstrong means everything. I think this will be one of the most monumental occasions of my time as commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n
County Commissioner Kevin Boozel is also a resident in Harrisville and believes this public private partnership will have tremendous benefits for residents in northern Butler County.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had internet, but we didn\u2019t have it everywhere. So we\u2019re making up the road and closing the digital divide,\u201d Boozel said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of topographical issues in that area. Some spaces between houses are too far apart, but you can\u2019t leave a whole sector of the community out of the digital world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people have to go to the local library to download their homework, we have a problem. It\u2019s above and beyond even the internet. This is about access and affordability for me. In our area it was unaffordable, this is what makes it affordable,\u201d Boozel added.<\/p>\n
Design work is complete for Moniteau residents with install projected to start in October. Meanwhile Slippery Rock residents will see install begin early next year. The full project is scheduled to be done by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An initiative to bring internet to northern Butler County is taking the next step. Armstrong hosted a groundbreaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[174,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-16592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}