Ohio cities need three important utilities to stay viable: gas, electricity, and water. Now a fourth utility is pushing its way into the conversation: internet access. More specifically high-speed internet access. Where once communities have had to hope that private companies would provide that service, more and more local governments are taking on the responsibility themselves.
In late 2014 Assistant Commerce Secretary Jay Williams came to Cleveland to announce a federal investment for a 100 gigabit trunk line that runs down right through the heart of the city.
鈥淭his is huge for the city of Cleveland, for NE Ohio, for the state of Ohio,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淭his is the first 100 gigabyte commercially available fiber-optic connection.鈥�
The important distinction there is 鈥渃ommercially available.鈥� There have been 100 gigabit fiber lines connecting New York to Chicago but for the first time businesses could tap into them.
It鈥檚 been a slow process but businesses have joined Case Western Reserve University and local medical institutions to tap that high speed connection.
Other cities in Ohio are building out their own systems with industry in mind. Will Ersing with the City of Hudson says if you鈥檙e trying to attract businesses, high speed fiber is key.
鈥淏ack in the day, one key factor was a rail spur. The rail spur has been replaced with a fiber strand,鈥� he said.
Ersing鈥檚 title with the city is Chief Broadband Officer.
鈥淲e were seeing reports from businesses and site locators who were asking for fiber availability in these locations, in our business parks,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd if you can鈥檛 check that box the business isn鈥檛 coming.鈥�
Hudson started its own broadband company, , and began calling itself Ohio鈥檚 first 鈥淕igabit City.鈥� It has laid or strung 60 miles of glass fiber, connecting all the business districts, 50 percent underground and 50 percent on poles. It鈥檚 a big help that Hudson owns its own electric company, Hudson Public Power, so the city owns the poles.
Ersing says companies had threatened to leave the town of 22,000 if they couldn鈥檛 get faster internet.
鈥淐ompanies from bio-med, architecture, software design. A lot of these companies are transitioning from in-house servers to cloud-based applications. So they need that bandwidth,鈥� Ersing explained.
City officials asked local companies Windstream and Spectrum cable to offer the higher speeds that businesses were asking for. They were turned down.
Now, Hudson Velocity offers 5 levels of speed, up to 10 gigabits per second. The lowest, 100 megabits cost $100 a month. Those are all 鈥渟ymmetrical鈥� speeds, meaning uploads are the same speed as downloads.
FAIRLAWN
A similar thing happened to Bill Roth, the Mayor of Fairlawn. He said when he told some industry people that the city might start its own company he was told 鈥済ood luck.鈥�
Roth says he needed it to attract companies from around the world to his small town of 7400 people. He had low-cost land, water, and a workforce.
鈥淏ut the big negative that most of these companies had was our internet was not up to par with what they deemed proper or what they could use,鈥� Roth said. 鈥淪o we started looking around and were shocked to find out that the average internet speed in Ohio in December 2014 was 48th out of 50 states.鈥�
So Fairlawn built its own internet provider, . It partnered with Fujitsu to bury 55 miles of fiber optic cable.
鈥淟ast year alone we had 7 companies tell us they moved into Fairlawn,鈥� said Roth. 鈥淥ne of those companies we met in Germany, at a trade show, and they now have 5 employees at Embassy Parkway and they鈥檙e hiring more.鈥�
That was an engineering company. Like Hudson, Fairlawn is also seeing medical and accounting firms who need the bandwidth moving in.
Unlike Hudson, Fairlawn is also providing fiber to every household in the city. The operation is run out of the city鈥檚 own data center which hums with cooling fans in a room of the city鈥檚 Public Service Department building.
鈥淎ll the fiber internet comes in here鈥� said Deputy Service Director Ernie Staten, 鈥渟o we have 3 upstream providers that bring service in on this side and then this is Fairlawn Gig going out to every home.鈥�
Fairlawn can offer speeds up to 1 gigabit (1000 megabits) per second for $75/month but, for homeowners, it more commonly sells a 150 megabit speed for $55 dollars a month. That is still at least 5 times faster than most commercial broadband. Like Hudson, the upload and download speeds are the same.
EXTRA BENEFIT
Mayor Roth says the availability of that fiber optic cable to every house has increased home values (up 8 percent in 2017) and home sales in his city.
Is it an enticement to even average residents to move to Fairlawn?
鈥淒efinitely,鈥� said the mayor. 鈥淲e鈥檝e actually had some residents tell us their children are considering moving back home to our area because of this.鈥�
Fairlawn officials planned for about 35 percent of the city to sign up for the service but they鈥檝e gotten 50 percent so far. They also are building out a city-wireless system using a tower on city property.
While Fairlawn and Hudson are talking about 50 or 60 miles of fiber, is trying three times that. Medina County, like other communities, raised money to build its system through the local port authority and by selling bonds.
COUNTY SYSTEMS
In Stark County, a group called the Stark County Broadband Task Team wants to build something similar. Its website is called the .
But one of the team鈥檚 three co-chairs, is getting cold feet. County Commissioner Richard Regula says Stark County, with one of the lowest sales taxes in the state, cannot afford to subsidize it.
鈥淚 get the need. The reality is: how are you going to fund it?鈥� Regula asked. 鈥淯nless you鈥檙e going to subsidize it, which I think they鈥檙e doing in Medina. I don鈥檛 know how Hudson and Medina are paying back their costs in building out a center.
鈥淎nd I鈥檝e really seen very few things that government can do more efficiently than the private sector.鈥�
Regula, who owns a trucking company, says his goal in life is to complete the the expansion of US Route 30 to a 4 lane expressway. It runs from Chicago to Pittsburgh but the bottleneck is in Canton where it squeezes to 2 lanes.
鈥淚f you want to really build the economy there鈥檚 no better way to do it than road constriction in my opinion,鈥� said the Commissioner.
鈥淎nd that includes high-speed broadband with autonomous cars and trucks and everything that鈥檚 coming. This could be a perfect test area. And then you could really connect Chicago and Pittsburgh with a 4 lane limited access highway and you could run the conduit right down the middle of it.鈥�
Regula adds local cable companies are improving their offerings due to the mere threat of municipal broadband. The cable provider in Massillon, MCTV, is now offering speeds at 100 megabits. And the evening we spoke with Regula, Spectrum ran advertisements on local TV touting their new 100 megabit speed.
ANY SPEED INTERNET
Back in Cleveland, the city with the super speed 100 gigabit line, a lot of people still have no internet access at home at any speed.
A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found Cleveland ranked third worst in the nation for internet access. 36 percent of its population lacks any internet connection.
The non-profit group is focusing on providing those connections. CEO Dorothy Baunach says just filling out a job application or student loan form requires an internet connection.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got that infrastructure from a business perspective,鈥� Baunach said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e lagging there at all. But if we want a workforce for these companies we can鈥檛 leave 36 percent of our city out of even the possibility of being part of the workforce.鈥�
Digital C has started connecting public housing buildings and is looking to expand rudimentary networks of routers in poor neighborhoods.
鈥淵ou may be able to do it with somebody in the neighborhood to be the sponsor for that neighborhood to deliver the wireless mesh, just to get it started,鈥� said Baunach. 鈥淢aybe grocery stores. You could even do crowd-funding in a neighborhood because all you have to do is maintain the routers, once we get that delivery. Again, it鈥檚 not permanent, high level service, but it鈥檚 enough to get people connected and get the ball rolling.鈥�
Baunach echoes Mayor Roth and others in calling internet access a necessity.
鈥淚t almost becomes a public utility. It鈥檚 almost like electricity or infrastructure, roads. You have to have access to internet so the public sector and the private sector have to figure it out. If we don鈥檛 have it there now we just have to figure out how to get it there.鈥�
STATE GOVERNMENT
As wealthier cities, like Fairlawn and Hudson, build their own systems, opposition is also building.
In some states, the big commercial internet providers have lobbied state governments to restrict municipal-owned internet services or even ban them altogether.
But in Ohio, state legislators are looking to help. Senator Joe Schiavoni proposed Senate Bill 199 to create the Ohio Broadband Development Grant Program and provide some $50 million dollars a year to build high speed (25 megabits/second or faster) internet connections to rural areas.
鈥�300,000 rural households don鈥檛 have access to broadband internet,鈥� said Schiavoni. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at a situation where 88,000 businesses don鈥檛 have access to broadband and 4 out of 5 children have to do homework online but don鈥檛 have access to do it.鈥�
Schiavoni is running for governor. His fellow Democratic contender Dennis Kucinich is promising a new public utility in Ohio to provide broadband services.
It鈥檚 a bipartisan issue. Republican State Representative Cliff Hite is sponsoring a house version of Schiavoni鈥檚 bill.
And the house has already passedby Republican Rick Carfagna that calls for local governments to pay 66 percent and the state to pay 33 percent toward the costs of building last-mile internet connections to areas where private companies refuse to go.
In the meantime, it鈥檚 been the cities and counties who have led the way.
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