Nonprofit utility in rural Ohio gets stimulus money for high-speed Internet | Business - cleveland.com - - cleveland.com

A non-profit utility in rural Ohio is among the first to get federal stimulus money to bring high-speed Internet access to areas without it.

Consolidated Electric Cooperative, based in Mount Gilead, says it will put its $1.4 million federal grant and $1 million loan toward a project to build a 166-mile fiber optic broadband network in rural parts of Delaware and Morrow Counties, north of Columbus. The entire project will cost $3.7 million and is set to begin in 2010.

ConnectOhio, a state-backed organization that tracks broadband usage, said in June that 38 percent of Ohioans don't subscribe to broadband, and 25 percent have no Internet access at all...