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MADISON TWP. — As the future of Innovative Fiber Optic Solutions is still being played out, its customers fear being left in the dark, which shows Internet availability is still a problem in parts of western Butler County.
For the most part, Butler County is in “pretty” good shape for Internet availability, with most subdivision and highly populated areas having at least one provider, said Don Shirley, Connect Ohio state operations manager for Southwest Ohio.
Innovative Fiber, also known as iFiber, filled one of the existing gaps of Internet service. The most significant pocket without service is outside Collinsville, one of the least populated areas of the county with eight or less households per mile, Shirley said.
“When it comes to those areas that were unserved by the cable company and the telephone company, that’s where iFiber focused their service,” he said. “They were kind of the only game in town and now that they’re gone, those customers are going back to being unserved.”
iFiber closed Dec. 1 out of fears it would be cut off based on a court settlement between its majority owner, the Perry Thatcher estate of Middletown, and Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co.
Thatcher also owned Normap Butler, which provided the infrastructure for iFiber’s service. Thatcher’s estate reached a court settlement in November in which Normap’s fibers will be owned by Cincinnati Bell.
But then Cincinnati Bell and the representatives of Thatcher’s estate agreed to allow iFiber and its customers the option to run on Cincinnati Bell’s fiber ring for free through the end of March while iFiber pursues a wireless service provider to take over its wireless network, according to a joint statement Jan. 5.
The 200 to 250 iFiber customers affected are among those Connect Ohio is trying to reach. Connect Ohio is a nonprofit formed in 2008, part of Connected Nation, that works to improve people’s lives and make people more productive with Internet by focusing on availability, adoption, affordability, awareness and application, said Amanda Murphy, a Connect Ohio spokeswoman.
Availability of Internet affects quality of life, Murphy said.
She said Connect Ohio’s ultimate goal is 100 percent broadband availability and adoption in the state. Shirley said one of the organization’s heftiest tasks is mapping coverage areas throughout the state of fiber, broadband, digital phone and mobile services to communicate information to Internet providers and the public.
Shirley said service isn’t available across the county because areas such as Madison or Wayne townships and in the northwest corner of the county above Oxford don’t have a high enough population to justify the cost of expansion by large commercial providers such as Cincinnati Bell or Time Warner Cable.
Murphy said another reason for some gaps is terrain. Peaks and valleys affect where a signal can reach, she said.
“Those unserved areas are those places where there isn’t enough demand, not because they don’t want it, but because there isn’t enough volume to justify expansion,” Shirley said.
In fact, in iFiber’s case, it offered some of its services through a wireless canopy network that distributed signals from towers or other points of elevation to antennas on top of customers’ houses.
The antenna on top of former iFiber customer Connie Schenck’s house on Middletown Eaton Road looks like a satellite dish. Schenck lost Internet before an agreement between Cincinnati Bell and Thatcher’s estate was reached. She has resorted to a wireless card propped up in her window by a glass cup.
A constant red light indicates poor signal strength. She described the situation this way: Dial-up is like walking and wireless cards are like running or riding a bike.
“And then when iFiber came it was like getting in your car,” said Schenck, who runs an accounting business from home. “Now I feel like I’m back to walking or riding a bike.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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