Feds to collect data to aid Internet upgrade across Ohio

Forty percent of Ohio’s land area lacks access to broadband service, preventing its residents from getting access to telephone, cable, long-distance learning and other offerings dependent on high-speed Internet service.

That amounts to about 4 million people who don’t have broadband access at home, said Tom Fritz, executive director of Connect Ohio, a nonprofit public-private partnership the state established in 2008 to determine where broadband infrastructure is still needed...