(Westville, IN) - Greater access to high-speed internet was a significant focus by the public and private sectors locally this week.

 

La Porte County Commissioner Sheila Matias was among the local officials at Purdue University Northwest near Westville.

 

Matias said there’s fiber now along the entire stretch of the Indiana Toll Road, and how to extend service from that fiber to unserved and underserved areas of La Porte County was discussed at length with service providers. The service providers were also informed there’s a road map for needing additional fiber in La Porte County.

 

The information gathered by the La Porte County Broadband Task Force, with help from residents, makes extending fiber more efficient for service providers.

 

“We’ve built a geospatial map of the survey data with the upload and download speeds so we know exactly where we need to deploy additional fiber,” Matias said.

 

Gaps in coverage are a problem, especially in rural areas nationwide, because of high cost and difficulty recovering the investment. In addition, rural areas often don’t have enough potential subscribers for service providers to make such an investment without help from the government offsetting those costs.

 

Matias says La Porte County is seeking funds to fill in more service gaps here.