Summit County plans to spend $75 million on a fiber internet project that will include building a 125-mile fiber optic ring to connect public safety entities in the county’s 31 communities and help expand the Internet access for residents and businesses.
There are also plans to work with private internet service providers, who could spend up to $300 million on the project, bringing the total figure for a potential public-private project to nearly $400 million.
The project, called Summit County Public Safety Fiber and Communications Network, is one of the county’s largest capital projects ever and is funded by a combination of county money and a portion of the $105.1 million of dollars he received under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). .
According to the county’s capital improvement budget, costs include:
• $35 million in ARPA Money for construction of the 125-mile fiber optic ring, which will be owned by Summit County and operated by the City of Fairlawn. The ring will connect all 31 communities and support the county’s emergency radio system, consolidated dispatch center and virtual court platforms. But the network will also provide additional capacity to provide internet service to all communities in the county.
“The ring will serve as the backbone of public safety communications and provide Internet service providers with the ability to create community networks connected to the ring and deliver Internet services to residents and businesses,” the budget states. county operation.
• $20 million in county funds for the design and construction of a data center in Fairlawn to serve the network.
• $20 million in ARPA funds for community broadband investments to support the provision of broadband to underserved areas of the county to improve public education, health, and criminal justice.
Brian Nelsen, chief of staff to Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro, said officially 94% of Summit County is served by internet access. But he said that figure was misleading given affordability and service level issues, with only about 50% of Summit County actually using the internet.
Nelsen said the county has been in talks with two private internet service providers, but no firm decision has been made.
“While we are primarily looking at government services and public safety, we also realize that with what would be called an intermediary network that connects all 31 communities, it creates the opportunity to partner with… internet service providers that would then come into , bring in private capital investment and invest in building community networks and selling, providing Internet services to residents and businesses outside of those networks,” Nelsen said. “It’s really a public-private partnership that we envision, trying to make the most of what government and public funds can provide with what the private sector can invest in and the services they could provide.”
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The county is using the ARPA money it received to fund projects it couldn’t afford, including creating a stormwater district.
“The executive and I couldn’t think of anything that ticked more boxes in terms of community impact, public safety, education, economic development and business growth and retention, smart technologies to deploy,” Nelsen said of the fiber project. “It really ticked more boxes than anything we could think of investing in, and it was one-time money, and we saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something.”
Nelsen said it would take 2.5 to three years to build the fiber ring, with data center construction in Fairlawn happening at the same time.
“The first residents to receive services (are) probably about three years old, and I could see it taking, to do it all, about seven years,” he said.
The county has invested millions of dollars in technology upgrades in recent years, including the ongoing construction of a regional dispatch center in Tallmadge and the Virtual Criminal Justice Courtroom project.
“We’re really trying to move our community, using the technology that we have now and hopefully in the foreseeable future, to move our community forward, to position ourselves to be competitive and more efficient,” Ilene Shapiro said. , Summit County Executive. mentioned. “We are excited about what the future can bring us. It’s a lot of hard work. But we’re confident that all of these things that we’re able to put in place right now, if you will, will serve our communities really well in the years to come.
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Summit County Fiber Optic Internet Survey
The county is also in the midst of Summit County’s “Job Hub & Opportunity Zones” high-speed fiber feasibility study, a process that began before the county received its ARPA money. Officials decided to continue the study to collect more data.
The process examines how to obtain high-speed fiber optic internet in the county’s job cluster and opportunity areas, including business corridors. The county received a $125,000 planning grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration and hired an Akron-based engineering firm, Environmental Design Group.
EDG is conducting a study-related survey of existing resident needs, challenges, prices, and user experiences related to Internet services. The survey is available at surveymonkey.com/r/6BFDFPB.
Contact Beacon Journal reporter Emily Mills at emills@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter @EmilyMills818.
