Morgantown firm expands broadband to Greene
ClearFiber Inc. is making connections in Greene County.
The Morgantown, W.Va.-based company announced last week that it has connected the first 20 Greene customers to its newly constructed fiber-optic line.
Chad Henson, ClearFiber’s president and chief executive officer, said in a news release that the company did research on Greene County and compared the findings with data from the Federal Communications Commission.
“We found that of Greene County’s 36,220 residents, 23.7% (8,584 people) do not have reliable access to the internet, and 3,500 residents have no internet access at all.”
This is an issue throughout many areas, not just Greene, because of a pandemic that has forced more people to work, learn and link up to vital services – including telehealth – from home.
“We were blown away to realize just how many people didn’t have access to the internet, and we felt it was necessary to address this issue head on,” Henson said.
The company began work on an 81-mile fiber-optic expansion project that would create connections to 2,200 residences with no connectivity.
ClearFiber said this is an expansion of the mission it undertook when the company was formed in 2016: to expand high-speed broadband to West Virginia. ClearFiber says it offers speeds of 1,000/1,000Mbps.