Interactive Broadband Mapping Tool Unveiled by the Reid Consulting Group
The Reid Consulting Group in partnership with the Broadband Advisory Committee of Athens County, Ohio recently unveiled their Interactive Mapping tool which demonstrates the true disparities in broadband access not only in Appalachian Southeast Ohio, but also the entire state. Read the release and visit the mapping tool below:
“The Ohio Broadband Availability map, developed by Reid Consulting Group on behalf of Connecting Appalachia, reveals that half of all populated areas in Ohio access the internet at less than 10 Mbps down/1 Mbps up. Two-thirds of the state is below the FCC minimum of 25 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up. That’s close to 720,000 houses without broadband, nearly 4 times what the FCC claims.
The true extent of Ohio’s rural digital desert isn’t the only surprise in the new Ohio Broadband Availability map. Bad service shows up even in densely populated urban areas like East Cleveland. When you zoom in and see a few poor test results surrounded by a bunch of good ones, that’s not necessarily an infrastructure issue. But when you see entire neighborhoods below 10/1 Mbps, that’s definitely a problem.
As you know, for years the FCC’s flawed broadband availability maps have painted a false, rosy picture of internet access in rural America. Folks who live there know from personal experience what the truth is, but until now there was no data to back them up. Now there is. The new Ohio Broadband Availability map plots the results of over 9 million Ookla® internet speed tests to show the true state of Ohio broadband. The picture is not pretty.”
