Communities from Willoughby to Kettering and Oregon to Lancaster have a network that can handle the connectivity demands of today and tomorrow.
The holiday season is in full swing and it’s the time of year when being connected is more important than ever… connected to those we love, to good health, and to the promise of a new year. It has become clear how vital our home internet connections are, to keep in touch with the people we love, to have virtual doctor visits helping keep ourselves healthy, to complete school lessons or find the new job that will fill the new year with success.
We close out 2022 with a point of pride for the team at AT&T Ohio: our newest technology – fast fiber internet service – continues to grow here in the Buckeye State. We’ve spent 2022 expanding and upgrading our network to provide the more advanced, high speed internet that fiber offers. As of December 2022, we offer AT&T Fiber in more than 85 cities in Ohio.
This brings fiber-optic technology that is multi-gig capable the day we install it, making our network future-proof and meeting growing data demands for families in Cleveland’s Clark Fulton, Downtown, Glenville, Kamm’s Corners, Mt. Pleasant, North Collinwood and Old Brooklyn neighborhoods, among others. AT&T Fiber households in Columbus neighborhoods of Franklin Park, Franklinton, North Linden and South Linden, Maize-Morse, Mount Vernon, South Hilltop, South of Main and more are learning what it’s like to have multiple people streaming video or downloading files at the same time in the same home, without constant dropping or buffering. Each of these neighborhoods has hundreds of living units with AT&T Fiber service available. Across Ohio, our fiber connections are available at more than 675,000 customer locations. In a few short years, we’ve gone from 1 Gig to now multi-gig speeds. And we’ve even reached up to 20-Gig speeds in the lab environment.
Our investment in this infrastructure means that more Ohioans who are doing video conference calls from home or submitting homework assignments are getting these tasks done faster than ever before. To us, fiber is foundational to our entire network. We seamlessly plan and operate one large fiber network with multiple purposes or end points, like homes, apartments and businesses, as well as our wireless network. Wherever fiber goes, wireless follows, and in Ohio, we invested nearly $1.7 billion in our wireless and wireline networks from 2019-2021.
Communities from Willoughby to Kettering and Oregon to Lancaster have a network that can handle the connectivity demands of today and tomorrow. Fiber is the technology that’s built for the future. Fiber provides superior reliability and speed potential, without compromising cost in the long-term. Our greatest impact can only be realized when we bring the benefits of high-quality connectivity and digital access to all, empowering communities with the opportunity to thrive in this modern world.
Our work to help close the digital divide is equally important and ongoing. We’ve made a three-year commitment, investing $2 billion to help address the issue. We have also launched two AT&T Connected Learning Centers in Ohio, to help narrow the digital divide by investing in connectivity, technology, digital literacy and learning tools to help today’s families and students succeed.
That’s not all. Because the digital divide is also a matter of affordability, AT&T is also working to make internet access more affordable for low-income households, including participating in the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The ACP provides eligible households with a benefit of up to $30 a month to reduce the cost of broadband service. It can be used toward Access from AT&T, offering speeds up to 100Mbps for $0 after the ACP benefit is applied. Across Ohio, more than 780,000 households have signed up for the ACP.1
We’re investing in and expanding the reach of our high-speed internet service, providing more affordable and accessible internet services to help close the digital divide, and working to improve connectivity in underserved communities. We look forward to expanding broadband access in Ohio in 2023, opening a bridge to possibility for more of our families, friends, and neighbors.
1 ACP Enrollment and Claims Tracker | Universal Service Administrative Co.
