Butler County officials thought they had a plan to extend fiber internet to more residents across the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s no longer discretionary, a commodity,\u201d county administrator Judi Boyko said of high-speed internet access. \u201cIt’s really become a utility that people rely on in their lives and the quality of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
But now, residents without reliable internet access will have to wait up to two more years for Altafiber to reach their doors.<\/p>\n
Commissioners gave the fiber internet company $10 million of its American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2023 to extend service to about 50,000 addresses. Altafiber was supposed to complete the project by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
But the company still needs to reach about 16,000 addresses, most of which are in the outskirts of Middletown and Oxford, said Collin Taylor, a program manager for Altafiber.<\/p>\n
Boyko said she is finalizing a new agreement with Altafiber that will require the company to complete its service in Butler County by Sept. 30, 2028 \u2014 or else face penalties, such as giving a discount to households that weren\u2019t reached by the deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s a certain amount of money that would [have] an impact to their bottom line,\u201d Boyko said.<\/p>\n
The county is still waiting to hear back from Altafiber about the terms, Boyko said.<\/p>\n
Slow internet affects residents<\/p>\n
Extending connectivity is just the first step, Boyko said. Even after the project is complete, \u201cpeople still have to decide to go subscribe, and they have to pay for the subscription and then connect into it through Altafiber.\u201d<\/p>\n
But residents in one of the areas that remains underserviced say Altafiber has to be better than what they currently pay for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last two weeks, I think we went nine hours without an internet connection,\u201d said Madison Township resident Steve Brun, who uses Spectrum internet for online banking and general day-to-day use. \u201cWe’re just pretty much getting fed up with the service we’re getting for the price that we’re paying. It just continually goes up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brun said he paid just $44 a month for the internet in 2017, but now it\u2019s up to $100 a month. He said he\u2019s looked for other options, but Altafiber isn\u2019t available in his neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Down the road, Shauna Studt said she sees her internet, also provided by Spectrum, go out nearly every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt constantly goes out in circles and circles. Sometimes we have to restart the modem. Our phone constantly goes out and says, \u2018service connection lost,\u2019\u201d Studt said, adding it makes it hard for her six-year-old daughter to practice math and spelling online. \u201cWe could use better service out here in the rural area.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same story for Studt\u2019s neighbor, Ginger Hollon, who said she switched from Spectrum to T-Mobile in search of better internet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just now came out to our area, and it was terrible,\u201d Hollon said. \u201cWe switched within weeks back to Spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollon said she\u2019s \u201cheard good things\u201d about Altafiber and would try switching to its service if the company was available at her address.<\/p>\n
In an email, a Spectrum spokesperson said the problems in Madison Township appear “to be an isolated issue” and offered to reach out to homeowners reporting internet outages. T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment about its services in the township.<\/p>\n
The commissioners\u2019 concerns\u00a0<\/p>\n
The commissioners\u2019 decision to continue working with Altafiber despite the delay came after a lengthy discussion with company representatives on Sept. 8.<\/p>\n
Altafiber\u2019s Taylor told Butler County commissioners the \u201cmain hold-up\u201d has been gaining approval from electric utility companies to use their poles.<\/p>\n
Both Duke Energy and Butler Rural Electric Cooperative told WVXU they have maintained a positive relationship with Altafiber. AES Ohio, which also serves the area, said it does not have any active projects with Altafiber in Butler County at this time.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Cindy Carpenter said her goal is to ensure rural households are connected, after she heard of teenagers struggling to do homework during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you do it? Are you going to do it? And are those rural households going to have connectivity in case something like this happens again?\u201d Carpenter asked.<\/p>\n
Taylor said bringing fiber internet to Butler County would be possible even without financial support, but the assistance ensures the county remains at the top of Altafiber\u2019s to-do list.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it is in our two-year plan, there is always the chance \u2014 corporate priorities overtake other things,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
In a statement to WVXU, Altafiber said Butler County\u2019s support will help the company reach more rural areas faster, adding, \u201cPublic funding helps accelerate deployment in those locations by offsetting a portion of those costs and helping ensure those areas remain on an accelerated build timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altafiber said it has already invested nearly $55 million in infrastructure to support the build in Butler County.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Butler County officials thought they had a plan to extend fiber internet to more residents across the county.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[174,74],"class_list":["post-866983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-internet","tag-internet","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866983","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=866983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}