COLUMBUS: An Ohio legislative panel has approved a $3.1 million investment to help bring a faster broadband network to some educational institutions and cities around the state.
About $1.9 million will be used to increase connection speeds for the cities of Wooster and Portsmouth from 10 gigabits per second to 100. The update is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
The money is part of a larger broadband effort that Gov. John Kasich announced in February. The state hopes faster networks will allow research institutions, businesses and medical centers to upload and transmit their data more quickly.
Roughly $877,000 of the investment would help 33 universities, community colleges and technical schools to enhance their networks with boosts of up to one gigabit per second.
