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A sign behind Woodsdale Elementary School designates a drive-up wireless hotspot at which Ohio County Schools students can access the internet with their school-provided Chromebooks or iPads. Part of a patchwork of solutions the school system deployed to address a lack of uniform access revealed by remote schooling during COVID, the hot spots worked for some but not all, according to Patrick Riddle, technology coordinator. (Photo by Nora Edinger)

WHEELING — While variability of internet quality across West Virginia continues to be an issue — and has launched lawsuits against and settlements from providers in recent years — local officials say online access inside Ohio County is more uniform now than even two years ago.

COVID-driven remote schooling and working revealed pretty much every weak point — from clusters of rural homes that were all but cut off from online life to individual houses in need of a boost, according to Patrick Riddle, technology coordinator for Ohio County Schools.

Riddle said the school system employed a patchwork of ways to link students with their schools — ranging from creating wireless hotspots in various locations to combining forces with the county commission to wire up two underserved micro-neighborhoods.

“That problem was brought to us and we agreed to solve the problem,” said Randy Wharton, Ohio County Commission president, of working to connect clusters of homes in the Dallas Pike and Clearview areas.

Riddle spotted those areas of internet isolation in spring 2020, during the first of two rounds of universal remote schooling that year. He turned data from a system-wide family survey into a map that showed which students were connected and which were not.

Reaching the groups of homes might have been costly in terms of infrastructure — which Wharton said involved dealing with a utility, a private cable company and a larger internet provider — but it was one of the easier patches. The rest of Riddle’s map showed why.

One issue was economic, Riddle said. There were other clusters of homes in lower-income neighborhoods for which the infrastructure was there, but the funds to tap into online access were not. Another factor was geography. Individual homes here and there were geographically too far from the internet infrastructure needed to keep students effectively connected.

“You see a bunch of random dots across the county,” he said of how the latter appeared on the map. “It just opened everyone’s eyes, We knew there were areas that were underserved.”

Riddle also knew it wasn’t going to be possible to string enough telephone wire or cable line to fix every student’s lack of access. There would have to be multiple solutions.

An early one – spurred by efforts on the state level – was to create wireless (WiFi) hot spots in key locations. These were generally outside school buildings and other natural community gathering places.

Because the school system had fortuitously supplied Chromebooks to each student in grades 6-12 before COVID, all a family lacking home internet had to do was drive up or walk up to one of the hot spots and the device would automatically be recognized and allowed access.

It was a solution aimed at both economic and geographic need, but Riddle said it didn’t work particularly well for many families.

“Most people weren’t willing to drive to those spots,” Riddle said. “When you’re cooking dinner and they’re (children) needing to go here and there, the last thing you want to do is drive somewhere else so your kids can finish their homework.”

The school system, alternatively, began employing MiFi technology, particularly in isolated areas, he said. MiFi is a small, portable router that can create its own access hotspot.

On the economic end, the system also worked with Comcast to bring discounted internet plans to lower-income neighborhoods and individual homes that already had reliable access infrastructure. Riddle said, again, this worked for some but not all. Some households were denied because of past-due bills, he explained.

“We threw a wider net, hoping we could help as many people as possible,” Riddle said of working multiple techniques simultaneously to keep the education stream flowing.

He noted the best of those efforts weren’t enough at times, even for neighborhoods that had high connectivity before COVID.

“The wiring in the neighborhood was older or the wiring in the houses was older,” he said, noting his own household was struggling when he and his teacher wife were trying to work from home and both of their children were remote schooling.

“If two of us were trying to live stream, it got difficult,” he said of why they wound up taking turns. The workers got daytime hours, the kids got afternoons and evenings. “We’re praying we never see that level of need again.”

Wharton said government is moving toward fiber internet for that same reason. Noting departments such as the sheriff’s office and assessor’s office need to store and send large documents, Wharton said fiber seems to be the natural next move.

While cable- and telephone-based internet rely on copper wiring to transmit electrical signals, fiber internet sends light signals through bundles of fiber-optic cables. Cables and other infrastructure are still needed, but fiber transmission is significantly faster, allowing higher quality internet.

Wharton, who is also president of the Ohio County Development Authority, believes entities like government and businesses that have high internet need have already switched or are in the

process of switching to fiber internet. He said he heard few complaints from businesses during months when a number of employees were working remotely.

Students, who continue to connect to the internet to do their schoolwork in a multitude of ways, generally don’t have access to fiber internet at home as of yet, but Riddle said the school system continues to track what they do have and explore creative ways to keep as many connected as possible.

“Moving forward, all the holes we (found during COVID) showed us … what the options are and how good they are,” Riddle said of bridging what digital divide remains. “The lack of connectivity is as big of a detriment as too much connectivity at this point.”

John Deskins, director of West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, agreed and suggested it’s not just school officials that need to be thinking about connectivity. It’s about economic impact.

“Internet access has become a critical component of infrastructure today … not having (high-speed access) is a complete deal breaker in attracting businesses or individuals to your community,” Deskins said. He compared internet to electricity or running water – which also moved from luxury to necessity.

“They (potential developers) can determine a community or city doesn’t have good internet before they ever speak to anyone,” he added. “There might not ever be a discussion or an opportunity.”

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