Expanding Broadband access to all parts of Vermilion County is the goal of some local groups that feel there is much to gain. Mike Marron, CEO of Vermilion Advantage, told members of the County Board’s Finance and Personnel Committee Monday evening that there are parts of the county where accessibility to Broadband is “pretty lean”.
{AUDIO: “We’re planning to try to put some incentives on the table to try to help get the rest of our communities connected. And on the east side of the county, those areas need attention as well. Because even though they are served, the service may not be reliable. It may cost too much. If you’re the only game in town you pretty much have free reign to charge what you want to charge.”}
Marron told the County Board’s Finance Committee Monday evening that one idea is to possibly have a fiber optic line between communities…
{AUDIO: “Build a middle mile strand throughout the middle of the county, so that it could branch off and we could connect all of the different communities. And then maybe build a ring inside the city of Danville that would connect all of the government buildings. Have ownership of that but lease it to the providers and use the lease payments to make payments on the bond, so it’s not a tax increase. But it would be a mechanism where we could finance it and actually get a way to basically build-out an entire Broadband network across the entire county.”
Marron added that the discussion about having a fiber optic line between communities is very preliminary. He also noted that if Broadband service is improved countywide, it could help make the county a destination location…
{AUDIO: “Some of the greatest places that we have to market – the parks, the state park, Kennekuk County Park – we have very limited access to technology in those areas. For instance, we’ve got the Kennekuk Education Center that is a world-class facility. A wonderful facility, and we could actually attract groups to come in and hold board meetings, etcetera, there. But the problem is there’s no connectivity there.”}
University of Illinois Extension, Vermilion County Farm Bureau, and Vermilion Advantage are some of the key groups continuing to explore the ways to expand Broadband access across all of Vermilion County.
