County rural broadband proposals still under study

Bartholomew County isn’t quite ready yet to make a $4 million dollar decision on a provider to bring high speed internet to the rural corners of the county.

In December, the county commissioners sought proposals from companies that were willing to provide rural broadband to the county, for a share of $4 million set aside from federal COVID-19 relief funds. Two companies submitted proposals, AT&T and Meridiam Infrastructure North American Corp.

To help them decipher the proposals, they hired Scott Rudd, a statewide expert in broadband. At the commissioners meeting this week Rudd said that he would like to form a scoring panel to rank the two proposals. He said that he wanted the county to do the due diligence to choose the absolute best proposal.

Commissioners still hope to be able to make a decision within a few week including negotiating the contract.