WARREN — Trumbull County families in areas with poor or no internet service have a lot to look forward to this year.

North Carolina-based Brightspeed, the nation’s third-largest fiber broadband builder focused on empowering more homes with reliable internet, announced that it was awarded $1.5 million to expand its Brightspeed Fiber Internet network to nearly 2,400 more locations in the county, according to a news release.

The award comes on the heels of $12.3 million in local, state and federal funding already awarded to the company to connect nearly 5,900 homes and businesses in Allen, Ashtabula, Columbiana, Knox, Mahoning, Shelby and Trumbull counties.

“Eastgate is excited to support this project and commends Trumbull County’s dedication to investing in broadband infrastructure for its residents,” Jim Kinnick, executive director of Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, said.

“We are excited to see years of hard work pay off with this partnership and to have Trumbull County residents who have traditionally been unserved or underserved receive a broadband connection directly to their front door,” Julie Green, director of the Trumbull County Planning Commission, added.

Rick Hernandez, president of the county’s board of commissioners, noted the issues that areas like the county fairgrounds and similar rural areas have had with their internet, saying they’ve been “inundated” with poor service when it comes to broadband and deemed the older DSL services “slow and archaic”.

“At the fairgrounds, it’s dangerous when you have a county fair and you don’t have access to emergency services and things of that nature,” he said.

“I know I speak for all commissioners, we are very much involved with the planning commission to see to it that our residents receive proper broadband services throughout our county here,” Hernandez said. “You’re going to see this expanding, too. It’s part of our economic expansion when we’re talking about companies positioning here.”

Hernandez said the fairgrounds did have a provided service there last year, but they need a stable, ongoing one that would be permanent, not some “makeshift situation” to get them by.

County commissioner Denny Malloy said they were happy with Fiber Optics’ progress in hitting the Mahoning Valley, as the COVID-19 pandemic made them realize how behind things were.

“We realized the need when people were shut into their homes — a lot of them were working remotely, working from home, doing school from home — and we realized how big of a deficit we actually have here in this county,” Malloy said. “$1.5 million is no little splash, and you combine that with the new companies setting up shop, and all the work the chamber and Eastgate is doing, they’re really moving us into a better future for our county.”

Malloy said the grant funds will extend into areas that have been underserved by internet for a long time, and people in urban areas will see their internet speeds increase “dramatically.”

According to the release, Brightspeed has been awarded $13.8 million in funding to date, from the Ohio Residential Broadband Expansion Grant (ORBEG) program funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, the Broadband Expansion Authority and BroadbandOhio to extend its planned fiber network build by more than 8,300 across the company’s footprint in the state.