BELMONT — A multi-year undertaking to bring fast, powerful internet to underserved areas of Belmont County is expected to break ground in July, and the public is asked for support and input.

Nick Hunter, CEO of Fiber Capital Partners, a fund management business that brings in private capital investment to build infrastructure in communities that lack it, and Tim Berelsman, CEO of Ohio Gig, which will provide the services, held a presentation at the Union Local Middle School auditorium Tuesday to outline the project as it draws closer to becoming reality.

Township and county officials were present, as well as area businesspeople and officials with the Union Local School District.

Hunter and Berelsman also announced the website belmontcountygig.com was up. People may visit the site to learn more about service plans, or to request service. The company will pay attention to where demand is highest in Belmont County and prioritize fiber routes accordingly.

They plan a total investment of about $132 million to run fiber through Belmont County. Berelsman spoke about the advantage of fiber’s speed and durability compared to other materials such as copper and the problems that can arise from a purely broadband setup.

Hunter described the company’s initial work in Warren County, Ohio when his family company, Sycamore Legacy, found the lack of internet service was stymieing the effort to bring new businesses to the area.

“That was about three years ago,” he said. “Today we have hundreds of subscribers all connected by fiber to home internet, and they had previously had no internet, or internet so poor it was essentially useless.

“We knew right away that Belmont County was the next area we were going to take on,” Hunter said.

Hunter said there will be no financial obligations to Belmont County and the company plans to chiefly use public routes to lay the fiber.

He and Berelsman said the designs are complete, with a goal of at least 60 percent of Belmont County households signed up for service. Berelsman said speeds would be at least 250 Mbps download speed and 50 Mbps upload, and rates would not change.

“We are focused on delivering gigabyte-plus internet service, 1000 megabytes per second is what this system is built for, with the ability to go up to 10,000 megabytes per second to everyone’s home,” Berelsman said.

Work will begin in the vicinity of Belmont College. Hunter said the focus will be local hiring.

“(Belmont College) that’s where we’re going to start. We have to build this out in a contiguous fashion,” Berelsman said. They will lay fiber west and south 15-24 miles to cover the Union Local School District.

The phases will be launched in overlapping five-year projects beginning every year until coverage is completed in 2029. Phases may be completed more quickly depending on funding and adoption by county residents.

“Phase 2, 3 and 4 are scheduled to kick off in July 2022 and those will take five years each,” Berelsman said. “We’re going to build the entire county. Our commitment is to build the entire county. … When this is all said and done, Belmont County will be the only county in Ohio that will be fully wired underneath a fiber plan…that fiber will grow with the ever-increasing data needs.”

Pultney Township Trustee Frank Shaffer was enthusiastic. Many attendants asked questions about the company’s plans and service.

“Everybody who’s showing up is getting their questions answered, and I think that they’re satisfied. I think we still got to get this out to the rest of the public, the residents,” he said.

Natalie Brown, president of MPR Transloading and Energy in Bellaire and a member of the oil and gas associated community assistance organization Give Belmont County also sees potential.

“I think it’s very important for our children to have resources to be able to learn, especially in today’s environment,” Brown said. “It’s really important that our kids have those types of resources.”

Union Local Superintendent Ben Porter had heard the presentation and remains impressed.

“It’s something we as a school district are excited about,” he said. “For a lot of our district. I know from hearing their proposal that their plan is a split plan and we’re hoping to get the word out.”

He said this became clear during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Going through a pandemic and being required to do a lot of remote learning throughout the school year…drove home the need for reliable internet, not only for academic purpose, but you have a lot of individuals who were required to work from home.”

“It sounds very good. We’ll see. Hopefully it will help our kids in outlying areas get internet in the home,” Terry Puperi, member of the Union Local School District board of education, said.

“It’s a much-needed asset for Belmont County,” local auctioneer David Jones said. “I think once it gets started and people see the results, I think it’ll mushroom.”