Billions of dollars allocated to increase availability of Internet access

The Obama administration is pumping billions of dollars into expanding the availability of high-speed Internet access to areas that lack it, in an effort to extend the broadband lifeline that is essential to attracting private investment and creating jobs in the 21st century.

Connect Ohio, a nonprofit organization that Ohio created in 2008 to determine where broadband exists and where it is needed in the state, already displays a broadband-availability map on its Web site at www.connectohio.org. The federal funding will allow the organization to collect more detailed data from current broadband providers statewide to update the map, said Tom Fritz, executive director of Connect Ohio, based in Columbus...