Rural Broadband Access: Summit Seeks To Connect Leaders

The Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit was created by community organizer and Meigs County resident Liz Shaw and the Citizens Connectivity Council. Her goal was not necessarily to see immediate action, but to show the strong desire for access and the currently sad state of broadband in Appalachia. “We’re not only not going forward, we are going backward in many cases,” Shaw said. “This is like being in a Conestoga wagon on the prairie and sending up smoke signals, in my opinion, when you hear from a county that has no 911 and no landlines and no cell phone and no internet working.” Kate Forscey, associate policy counsel at Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C., digital rights advocacy group, said the summit was a good time for national groups to hear from the region. “This is an opportunity for localities to be empowered, to provide their own broadband, to talk about the challenges that they face that we don’t necessarily always hear about in Washington,” Forscey said.