Clinton County

The Clinton County seat is Carlyle, home to Carlyle Lake which is used for sailing and fishing, with sandy beach areas and state park trails. Cheryl Brinkmann leads the Clinton County broadband initiative. The team is composed of members of the Clinton County Board, the county clerk, and the Clinton County Farm Bureau. In addition to the team's efforts to improve broadband access across the county, it is focusing on connectivity around Carlyle Lake as it is an economic driver for the county, bringing in millions of visitors each year.

The community broadband plan recognizes a huge need for increased connectivity for the agricultural sector. Farmers in the county have been vocal about their desire to adopt precision agriculture technology, but are unable to without better broadband.

The team is meeting with broadband providers to find a partner who will address their needs by applying for the upcoming Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program that will provide $42.45 billion to expand high-speed internet access to states and territories to fund planning, infrastructure deployment, and adoption programs.

Crawford County

The Crawford County team is led by Cat Rice and Resa Shaner. The team is made up of county and economic development officials, a local farmer, and an IT educator who runs a professional school in Robinson, the county seat. During the program, the Crawford County team grew to represent 10 different local organizations.

Due to previous awards which are in danger of defaulting, the county does not have much BEAD-eligible territory. Many residential locations are classified as unserved, yet will likely not be beneficiaries of the BEAD program. This has led the Crawford County team to pursue alternative strategies, hoping to fund a broadband feasibility study to assess options. The team is interested in pursuing a fiber backbone project to ease the investment required for broadband providers to reach unserved areas.

Cumberland County

Cumberland County’s team is led by Sara Ruholl. The core of the team consists of a county economic development professional, a township supervisor, several county board members, and a community member who works for an ISP in Indiana.

Cumberland County is in a position of relative uncertainty concerning eligibility for BEAD funding. AMG Technology received Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support to vast areas of the county, making these locations ineligible for BEAD funds. In spite of this, the Cumberland County team has been aggressively contacting ISPs to assess the options to further develop the county broadband action plan.

Regardless of BEAD eligibility, the team is working to ensure that the county eases all local obstacles (permitting, access to bonds, rights-of-ways, etc.) for new broadband providers to enter the market.

Logan County

The Logan County team is led by Kathie Brown, the Director of Rural Outreach at the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council. Brown has led four other counties through Benton- managed community engagement and broadband planning programs (Broadband Breakthrough and Accelerate). Her leadership is valuable because of her economic development expertise and her ability to facilitate team recruitment at the county level, ensuring that planning is truly local.

During the program, Conexon received a $10 million grant from the Connect Illinois program to deploy last-mile fiber to rural areas of Logan County. In addition—and more importantly in the team’s view—the county supported an application to the state’s Connect Illinois program for WANRack to build an open-access, middle-mile network throughout the county. The middle-mile network will be critical in bringing other providers into Logan County to fill any remaining gaps in broadband access. Learn more in the Logan County Broadband Breakthrough plan.

Survey mailer:

Logan County launches survey for residents’ rural broadband needs (The Pantagraph, Feb 8, 2024) Macon

The Macon County broadband team is led by Macon County Administrator Tamara Wilcox. The team comprises a wide range of organizations including representatives from county government, the farm bureau, University of Illinois Extension, the school district, an electric service provider, Ameren Illinois, and local agribusiness.

To date, Macon’s “whole community approach” has made both the delegation of tasks and marketing of efforts very successful.

Connect Macon County initiative launches (Heartland News, Feb 17, 2024)

Perry

Jennifer Martin is the leader of Perry County Connect. The team is mainly composed of county commissioners; however, the team has been expanding to include additional organizations and members. The mission is “to establish a robust broadband infrastructure, where high-speed, reliable internet is accessible to all, bridging the digital divide and unlocking the full potential of Perry County.” The Perry team took a special interest in promoting their survey as not only an information-gathering tool for the county’s effort but as an opportunity to crowd-source official challenges to the BEAD eligibility map. The team believes that there were significant inaccuracies in the map. The team did not leave the fate of the county’s funding opportunities to chance.