Internet connectivity discussion dominates first Shelby County Council meeting of 2024

Representatives from two of Shelby County’s three rural school districts as well as several county residents spoke before the Shelby County Council Tuesday on the lack of Internet connectivity outside City of Shelbyville limits.

Representatives from two of Shelby County’s three rural school districts as well as several county residents spoke before the Shelby County Council Tuesday on the lack of Internet connectivity outside City of Shelbyville limits.

Now former county council member Linda Sanders set up a presentation at the council’s December meeting on how to get assistance with improving broadband service in the county. At the conclusion of the meeting, the council did not opt to create a Request for Information (RFI) that would help identify how Internet providers could assist in the process.

Shelby County Council President Tony Titus, who was reelected to the position at the start of Tuesday’s meeting, clarified that the council did not deny interest in an RFI and a clerical error was made in advertising to the public its intent to vote on an RFI at Tuesday’s meeting

Because it was not published prior to Tuesday’s meeting, the resolution creating the RFI could not be legally voted on. Titus still read the prepared resolution following more than an hour of discussion at the meeting and it will get voted on at the February meeting.

“There is federal money involved to hopefully expand broadband connectivity to the county,” said Titus exclusively to the Shelby County Post following Tuesday’s meeting. “Unfortunately, we need to know what we are going to be getting for that money and how it is going to be spent. What is needed and what areas will we try to look at. The best way to do that is put a Request for Information, a RFI, out to let the consultants put that together and bring it back to the council and we can sit down and go through that in detail.”

Indiana will receive over $800 million in federal money to help with Internet connectivity. Counties must show they are ready for infrastructure improvements and the Shelby County Broadband Task Force, led in part by Sanders (photo), who is now a member of the Shelbyville Common Council, have put effort forth to qualify for the funding cycle.

As the council heard Tuesday, there are many connectivity issues in all four corners of Shelby County.

“For this project, it’s big and its got a lot of fingers in it,” said Titus. “We just want to make sure we are going about it the right way to spend money the best way possible to try and help out as many people as we can.”

The COVID-19 pandemic forced city and county students to complete the final two months of the 2019-2020 school year online -- and that created issues for many families.

The pandemic also spurred a rise in telemedicine with doctors meeting patients online and pushed many businesses to set up employees to work from home.

As the council heard Tuesday, Internet connectivity should now be considered more of a utility like water, gas and sewage.

“What makes it problematic too is there are other alternatives whether its Verizon or AT&T or Star link,” said Titus. “There are other, what I call, options for connectivity in the outlying areas. Is it perfect? No. But you also cannot afford to run fiber (lines) to every house in the county.

“We may have to come up with a combination of fiber, broadband whatever, and wireless. We may have to look at a lot of different options. That is what the RFI will bring to the table.”

Titus anticipates the RFI will be available in 60 to 90 days.

Once the RFI is reviewed, the council can then send out a Request for Proposals (RFP) to get contractors bidding on the project.

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