Ottawa County, Ohio — Carroll Township reached a significant milestone in bridging the digital divide on Friday, when technicians completed the final fiber splice on a broadband project that will provide hundreds of rural residents with reliable high-speed internet.
The project, funded by a USDA loan program and carried out by Amplex, addresses years of connectivity issues in the rural Ottawa County community.
“Unfortunately, the township has very poor coverage in many areas, and the coverage that we do have is unreliable,” said Carroll Township Trustee Sandy Shearon. “We have spotty coverage. We have issues when there are storms and weather problems, which cause frequent internet outages.”
This phase concludes construction, which began in April and will provide fiber broadband service to approximately 500 homes and businesses.
“Today is the last day. So this marks the end of the project. This is the last splice. So we’re lighting up and making the last location available today,” said Amplex’s CEO and President, Mark Ratabaugh.
For rural families, reliable broadband access goes beyond streaming and entertainment. The new fiber network will address critical needs such as education, remote work, and emergency services.
“The biggest piece of the puzzle will be the fact of speed and continuity,” Shearon argued. “For kids that are studying from home, hopefully we never have that, but work from home situations and just bringing it in so that as we grow it can grow with us as well.”
Improved connectivity will also help first responders. “Fire and EMS will definitely, in some of the secluded locations in some of the dead zones they call them, this should hopefully give us much more connectivity situation,” Shearon told reporters.
Charles Tassel, Ohio State Director of USDA Rural Development, emphasized the critical importance of providing rural America with high-speed internet.
“You can have the breathing through a straw on the information highway is really difficult,” commented Tassel. “So we want to make sure that we’re providing a full service partnership, and that means broadband to all of our rural communities.”
The USDA Rural Development program focuses on three key areas: housing, business and industry support, and community facilities, all of which help rural communities develop and grow.
The Carroll Township project is part of a larger regional expansion. Amplex plans to start construction on the next phase in about a month, which will connect another 1,100 homes in the area.
The company primarily serves Ottawa, Sandusky, Wood, and Hancock counties, with some coverage in neighboring areas. Amplex began as a dial-up provider in 1997 and later expanded to offer fixed wireless broadband in 2003, followed by fiber service in 2015. The company now provides broadband, phone, and television services to more than 13,000 customers.
Residents in newly connected areas can sign up for service directly with Amplex or through their website. The company’s service area map is available here.
This project is part of a larger statewide effort to close the digital divide by ensuring rural communities have equal internet access to their urban counterparts.
