A more than $94 million state investment into high-speed internet infrastructure will benefit households in the Mahoning Valley.

The funding is part of the second round of the Ohio Residential Broadband Expansion Grant program to provide funding to Time Warner Cable Midwest and Brightspeed for six projects in 23 counties, including Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties, according to Gov. Mike DeWine’s Office.

The program is designed to provide internet service with speeds of at least 100 Mbps to households when it’s complete. Internet with a speed of at least 100 Mbps is generally considered a good speed for households with multiple users connected to multiple devices at the same time, according to Spectrum.

Time Warner was given $83.1 million for five projects, including $13.4 million to provide access to 5,036 households in Trumbull, Columbiana, Portage and Ashtabula counties.

Brightspeed was awarded $11.3 million for one project that will provide access to 5,053 households in Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana, Ashtabula, Allen, Knox and Shelby counties.

As part of the grant process 12 internet service providers also committed to independently fund 51 additional projects within two-years to serve an additional 10,000 households and impacting areas in 25 additional counties, according to the state.

“Having reliable, high-speed internet is an essential part of our world today,” DeWine said. “Providing Ohio’s unserved areas with dependable, affordable broadband access will enhance economic growth and create new opportunities where they didn’t previously exist.”

The state funding comes from the American Rescue Plan.

In March 2022, BroadbandOhio awarded more than $232 million in grants to 11 internet service providers for the first round of the grant program. The 33 awards announced during that round provided high-speed internet access to more than 43,000 households.

Then, Spectrum was awarded $262,609 to help 67 households in Trumbull County. In addition, Windstream Western Reserve was given $142,290 to help 29 households in the county.

There was not a project in round one in Mahoning County.

All projects in round one were to provide service access of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload to residents in areas that did not have a provider that can supply service at the speed.

According to Spectrum, a download speed of 25 Mbps is typically good enough for casual internet users to do things like get on the web and video chat, and an upload speed of 3 Mbps is enough for most households.