Butler County officials thought they had a plan to extend fiber internet to more residents across the county.
“It's no longer discretionary, a commodity,” county administrator Judi Boyko said of high-speed internet access. “It's really become a utility that people rely on in their lives and the quality of their lives.”
But now, residents without reliable internet access will have to wait up to two more years for Altafiber to reach their doors.
Commissioners gave the fiber internet company $10 million of its American Rescue Plan Act funds in 2023 to extend service to about 50,000 addresses. Altafiber was supposed to complete the project by the end of this year.
But the company still needs to reach about 16,000 addresses, most of which are in the outskirts of Middletown and Oxford, said Collin Taylor, a program manager for Altafiber.
Boyko said she is finalizing a new agreement with Altafiber that will require the company to complete its service in Butler County by Sept. 30, 2028 — or else face penalties, such as giving a discount to households that weren’t reached by the deadline.
“It's not a huge amount of money, but it's a certain amount of money that would [have] an impact to their bottom line,” Boyko said.
The county is still waiting to hear back from Altafiber about the terms, Boyko said.
Slow internet affects residents
Extending connectivity is just the first step, Boyko said. Even after the project is complete, “people still have to decide to go subscribe, and they have to pay for the subscription and then connect into it through Altafiber.”
But residents in one of the areas that remains underserviced say Altafiber has to be better than what they currently pay for.
“In the last two weeks, I think we went nine hours without an internet connection,” said Madison Township resident Steve Brun, who uses Spectrum internet for online banking and general day-to-day use. “We're just pretty much getting fed up with the service we're getting for the price that we're paying. It just continually goes up.”
Brun said he paid just $44 a month for the internet in 2017, but now it’s up to $100 a month. He said he’s looked for other options, but Altafiber isn’t available in his neighborhood.
Down the road, Shauna Studt said she sees her internet, also provided by Spectrum, go out nearly every day.
“It constantly goes out in circles and circles. Sometimes we have to restart the modem. Our phone constantly goes out and says, ‘service connection lost,’” Studt said, adding it makes it hard for her six-year-old daughter to practice math and spelling online. “We could use better service out here in the rural area.”
It’s the same story for Studt’s neighbor, Ginger Hollon, who said she switched from Spectrum to T-Mobile in search of better internet.
“It just now came out to our area, and it was terrible,” Hollon said. “We switched within weeks back to Spectrum.”
Hollon said she’s “heard good things” about Altafiber and would try switching to its service if the company was available at her address.
In an email, a Spectrum spokesperson said the problems in Madison Township appear "to be an isolated issue" and offered to reach out to homeowners reporting internet outages. T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment about its services in the township.
The commissioners’ concerns
The commissioners’ decision to continue working with Altafiber despite the delay came after a lengthy discussion with company representatives on Sept. 8.
Altafiber’s Taylor told Butler County commissioners the “main hold-up” has been gaining approval from electric utility companies to use their poles.
Both Duke Energy and Butler Rural Electric Cooperative told WVXU they have maintained a positive relationship with Altafiber. AES Ohio, which also serves the area, said it does not have any active projects with Altafiber in Butler County at this time.
Commissioner Cindy Carpenter said her goal is to ensure rural households are connected, after she heard of teenagers struggling to do homework during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Can you do it? Are you going to do it? And are those rural households going to have connectivity in case something like this happens again?” Carpenter asked.
Taylor said bringing fiber internet to Butler County would be possible even without financial support, but the assistance ensures the county remains at the top of Altafiber’s to-do list.
“While it is in our two-year plan, there is always the chance — corporate priorities overtake other things,” Taylor said.
In a statement to WVXU, Altafiber said Butler County’s support will help the company reach more rural areas faster, adding, “Public funding helps accelerate deployment in those locations by offsetting a portion of those costs and helping ensure those areas remain on an accelerated build timeline.”
Altafiber said it has already invested nearly $55 million in infrastructure to support the build in Butler County.
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