The American Rescue Plan of 2021 is funding a 125-mile fiber ring in Summit County to enhance public safety to the county’s citizens in 31 communities.

Fairlawn and Summit County are collaborating to maximize the benefits of the ring by establishing a data center that will:

• Support an “innovation corridor” in Summit County that will deliver advanced business services that the high technology sector demands and relies upon, including colocation and cloud services.
• Improve government service redundancies, ensuring “always on” public safety and dispatch services through multi-location backups.
• Provide Ohio’s State government access to Northeast Ohio (OARnet, ODOT, etc.).
• Ensure both the public and private sectors with continuity in disaster contingencies.
• Support the State’s vision to meet future municipal government needs.

Summit County and Fairlawn are asking for the financial grant/assistance from the State of $2 million dollars covering year one operations. Subsequently, the data center will be self-sustaining as a data center option for the private sector.

By reducing barriers between commercial vendors and customers, the proposed data center will attract previously unobtainable organizations to create a physical presence in Ohio. This will create a marketplace of dozens of solution providers who offer various products including wholesale internet access, voice and business collaboration services, offsite backups and compliance, telemedicine & healthcare solutions, and engineering & GIS services.

While the economic development opportunities derived from a data center are significant, just as important are the benefits a data center ensures the fiber ring delivers, including:

• Securing government services (schools, local government services, etc.) can continue to serve and educate by operating offline, even during a malicious cyberattack.
• Making our communities “pandemic proof” by providing a home and backbone for high-capacity cloud services.
• Enhancing public safety in 31 communities by connecting the fiber ring to the data center dispatch services along with a backup location on the other side of the county in Tallmadge. Summit County’s aging population is vulnerable and in need of more reliable Computer-Aided Dispatch and 911 services.

The grant/investment will support Summit County’s urban population of 540K citizens, enhancing the county’s economic health and ensuring constituents medical well-being.