BY J.P. DUCRO IV
Commissioner
Ashtabula County
Progress was slow for broadband in 2025, but 2026 should bring much more connectivity.
Ashtabula County has five different grant-funded fiber build-outs with three different providers currently active.
The biggest of the projects is partially funded by the ARC POWER grant. The total price tag is $3,888,584 ($2,497,161 million in ARC POWER funding, with a match of $1,391,423 from Brightspeed).
The contract between Ashtabula County and Brightspeed was signed in February of 2025, and Brightspeed has been working on initial phases of the project ever since.
High level design is 100% complete for all locations. Construction has begun in the largest build located in the Andover area with approximately 40 total fiber miles being placed thus far. Permitting is in process for the remaining locations.
Everything is on track for completion of these builds by the end of August 2026.
Through the Ohio Residential Broadband Expansion Grant (ORBEG) Round 2, two Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) received awards and are working through their buildouts. Brightspeed was awarded 1,125 addresses and has made fiber available to at least 54 of those locations so far. Another 1,355 locations were awarded to Charter through ORBEG2 with buildouts about to begin now that permitting is essentially complete.
Two other awards were issued to local companies through a reverse auction process from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) back in 2020. This program aimed to subsidize building high-speed broadband networks in unserved rural areas over a period of 10 years and projects are still working toward completion. Charter/Spectrum is progressing through this award concurrently with their ORBEG2 project. Windstream/Kinetic also received an award through this program, but we have not received an update on the current status of their build-out.
The extreme cold and heavy snow will slow fiber deployment over the winter. Some companies halt fiber construction based on their own temperature minimums to avoid possible damage to the delicate glass strands inside of a fiber cable. For activities that require going underground such a trenching, the weather is also an obstacle.
While I know everyone has been more than patient waiting for broadband deployment, please understand the realities imposed by the extreme weather.
Beyond what has already been funded, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) program we hoped would already be funding construction of service to an additional 2452 locations is moving VERY slowly. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) keeps creating new hurdles and responsibilities for state broadband offices, some literally impossible to meet.
Ohio’s final plan has been nominally approval by NTIA; however, no further progress can be made until Broadband Ohio and the NTIA hammer out the overarching agreement, then Broadband Ohio will have to hammer out agreements with each of the winning ISPs. Unfortunately, we have no timeline on when this will happen or guarantees this program, initially presented as designed to be one of the final efforts to complete connectivity for rural America, will ever move forward.
As previously stated, we will continue monitoring areas that lack service and seek grants, public/private partnerships, or other creative opportunities to get reliable and affordable internet access to every address in Ashtabula County.
If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me at jpducro@ashtabulacounty.us or leave a message at the office at 440-576-3757.
– Commissioner J.P. Ducro
date: 2026-02-08 17:22:00
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