Matthew Pepper

Matthew Pepper, of Chesterhill, was presented with a Broadband Hero Award Wednesday, March 16, at a Morgan County last-mile initiative meeting in McConnelsville. Connect Ohio acknowledged Mr. Pepper for the many hours and resources he donates to help households in his community get connected to broadband.

“I’m surprised,” said Pepper. “It’s wonderful to be recognized.”

The small town of Chesterhill, with a population of just a few hundred people, had a non-operational wireless Internet connection. Mr. Pepper worked with the municipality to create a functional WISP, which now services over 50 households in the area. He continues to volunteer his time and resources to expand the high-speed Internet’s availability by scouting area towers for transmitter locations and climbing roofs to place routers on houses and businesses. He is single handedly expanding broadband one house at a time in his community.

“(Broadband) adoption is not the issue. Availability is the issue,” said Pepper. “There’s no shortage of people asking to be added to the wireless system. I want to change this.”

Mr. Pepper also helps his local library with computer set-up, troubleshooting, and network connectivity and provided data and information to Connect Ohio’s technical outreach staff for completion of a broadband expansion model recently presented to Morgan County officials.

Connect Ohio thanks Matthew Pepper for his volunteerism and passion towards advancing technology and broadband availability to Ohioans.