TOT Executive Director Sarah Briggs moderated a preview of a study of Ohio’s telecom rules and broadband investment in Cleveland on Monday.  The study was done by Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management economics professor Jack Kleinhenz and the Digital Policy Institute at Ball State University.

Kleinhenz, joined by Steve Jones of Ball State, previewed the study before an audience of state and local officials and technology experts at the City Club of Cleveland.

Steve Jones (left), of the Digital Policy Institute at Ball State University, and Jack Kleinhenz, of Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management

Among the study’s findings: despite 90% of homes in Ohio having access, only 55% subscribe to broadband.  Also, 32% of Ohio’s homes will have wireless broadband by the end of 2012.

The study reports that Ohio outranks the national average in the following: number of per capita high speed lines, business lines as a percentage of high speed lines and the number of providers of high speed lines. The report also finds that between 15,000 to 30,000 jobs in Ohio are supported or created annually across all industries by investment in broadband.

Additionally, it is in the public’s best interest to have a level playing field among competitors in order to encourage additional investment in broadband, according to the study. Recommendations include reforming antiquated rules governing legacy phone companies to reflect competition in the marketplace.

The study will be released to the public in the coming weeks.

Two Ohio State University students are launching a wireless company that will provide broadband access to rural areas in Ohio.  The Columbus Dispatch profiled the young entrepreneurs, Aaron Plaat and Nathanael Palmer, who are set to launch Duvall Wireless.  The company will provide Internet access to customers via WiMax technology. 

“Think of it as the cellular phone of the Internet world,” Plaat said. The equipment can be mounted on cell-phone towers to create a wireless Internet network.

“It’s like Wi-Fi on steroids,” Plaat said.

Of course, you have to have a tower first. Construction for a tower on Plaat’s mother’s property in Ashville is scheduled to begin this week. The signal will be beamed from a provider with a Columbus tower to the tower on Plaat’s property, which will provide Internet access to a roughly 13-mile radius.

“It has limitations on how many people it can service, but the range is phenomenal,” Plaat said. “So it’s perfect for rural applications because they don’t exactly live 20 feet from each other’s houses. They’re farther away.”

The company will help provide a previously unreachable segment of the Ohio broadband customer base with service.

Broadband Internet access is available to 92 percent of households in Ohio, but not the remaining 8 percent — or about 350,000 households, according to Connect Ohio, a public-private initiative meant to widen broadband access.

“There’s a lot of areas, rural counties that are unserved,” said Tom Fritz, executive director of Connect Ohio. “It’s definitely a need that’s out there.”

Mobile wireless broadband service providers have been testing new and different advanced standards, hoping to move beyond the third generation services now offered.  3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution), mobile WiMax and 3GPP2 UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband) are all vying to replace the current EVDO and HSDPA services. 

According to DSLReports.com, LTE looks to be taking the lead.  U.S. wireless giants AT&T and Verizon are both moving towards the service.  And tests this week in Germany conducted by T-Mobile and Nortel Networks are helping to build momentum — the companies completed a test in Bonn where they obtained downstream LTE data rates of 170Mbps.  Current services offer data rates in the single digits.