Putnam Nearing Benchmark With Broadband

Every Putnam County residents should have access to at least one high-speed internet provider within the first few months of 2025.

That according to County Mayor Randy Porter after the county received another grant to continue its infrastructure upgrade. County Mayor Randy Porter said the biggest project is about eighty percent done and Twin Lakes is working hard to finish it up.

“I think it impacts us especially with education,” Porter said. “Lot of the stuff the children are doing is homework and stuff, is online. Lot of folks working from home now, having to do it online. We want folks to be able to be connected and do whatever they need to do so we’re hoping it’s going to expand the business side of our community also with new businesses coming in.”

Porter said the price of the high-speed internet will be fixed for the next couple years as part of the grant for the project.

Porter said the new coverage has a minimum download speed of two hundred megabits per second which will be a major upgrade for those using the old internet equipment. Porter said Twin Lakes will contact homeowners as the broadband is installed on their road to offer them the service.

“It depends on which package you want to choose as to how high you can go,” Porter said. “It goes all the way up to (a) gigabit, which is pretty fast.”

Porter said anyone who has not been contacted by Twin Lakes can reach out to the company and make sure they are on the list to be notified once the broadband is installed near them.

“We learned, especially during COVID, that students trying to do their homework from home online, people trying to work from home online, everything we’re doing with streaming now with TV and stuff,” Porter said. “And a lot of those folks only had the old DSL service that was really slow, couldn’t do a lot with it.”