photo by: Emma Delk

Marshall County Commissioner David McLaughlin listens to an update on Citynet’s broadband expansion project in the county during Tuesday’s commission meeting.

Citynet External Affairs Manager Melissa O’Brien informed Marshall County Commissioners during their meeting Tuesday that the company’s broadband expansion project in the county was anticipated to be completed earlier than the project’s deadline of June 2026.

Citynet’s LEAD 3 project will cover Wetzel, Marshall and Ohio counties, placing 206 miles of fiber and impacting 3,419 households across the three counties. Marshall County will receive 88 miles of fiber that will target 784 households that do not have access to adequate broadband speeds of 25/3 Megabits per second and serve an additional 724 customers.

“Serving as many targeted addresses as possible is the goal for the project,” O’Brien said. “The other households the project serves have adequate broadband speeds by the grant’s requirement standards but they will receive an upgrade in broadband speeds regardless.”

The Marshall County Commission has allocated $750,000 toward the broadband expansion project. The total request grant amount for the project is $7,376,000, and the Marshall and Wetzel County Commissions have put forward funding to create a 25% match for the grant amount.

O’Brien informed commissioners that company crews are going to every utility pole in the project area and taking measurements, a process which should be complete by the end of the month.

Once field collection is completed, the permitting phase of the project will begin. O’Brien said if permitting “goes smoothly,” construction crews should be in the area by the third quarter of the year.

The project grant deadline requires services to be provided to residents by mid-June of next year, but O’Brien said the company anticipates providing services “much, much earlier.”

“Everything’s going well,” O’Brien said to commissioners. “It has gone very smoothly so far, so I’m anticipating everything going well in the future.”

Regional Economic Development Partnership Program Development Manager Valerie Piko accompanied O’Brien at the meeting. RED has been a partner of Citynet for several years, according to Piko, who noted the benefits of the project when it comes to economic development opportunities and residents’ quality of life.

“They’ll now have access to telehealth, education opportunities, remote work opportunities and entrepreneurship opportunities,” Piko said. “The options are kind of endless and it will provide more digital opportunity to more residents.”

O’Brien added the project will also provide residents at impacted addresses competition between internet service providers to compete to provide residents with internet. She noted this “typically” results in customers receiving better costs and customer service from internet service providers.