Experience
Horizon has been providing telecommunications services to southern Ohio for 115 years. We provide leading-edge voice, video and data services to businesses and residents in eight southern Ohio counties. Founded in 1895 as the Home Telephone Company, the organization has grown and adapted to address changing needs of its customers, its employees and its community while still maintaining a competitive position within the telecommunications industry. Horizon has established a reputation for providing advanced services (including broadband to over 95% of its local telephone service area), superior quality and renowned responsiveness to its Appalachian customers. Horizon has built fiber optic networks - including self-healing rings - since the mid-1980s. Our fiber optic network now includes Athens, Highland, Jackson, Pickaway, Pike, Ross, Scioto and Vinton counties.

Innovation
Horizon firmly believes that the communities in southern Ohio have been severely underserved. Horizon will be part of the solution by providing truly state-of-the-art broadband services to the communities of southern Ohio. In fact, Horizon has a long history of innovation and community involvement. As a pioneer in the cable television industry, Horizon was the first in the nation to launch a CATV system in a community where customers could only receive the three major networks with a home antenna.

Horizon also has been a pioneer in data services. Before the Internet became available outside universities, Horizon provided a local videotex service (comparable to AOL and Compuserve at the time) called Vicom, complete with our own local news and information service. As the Internet spread, Horizon launched bright.net, Ohio’s first rural dial-up Internet provider. When our digital video service was launched, we became the first in the state to offer a companion DSL service.

Commitment
To celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary in 1995, Horizon provided an advanced fiber optic network to Ross County schools, establishing the Great Seal Education Network of Tomorrow, at no cost. When distance learning was just a “buzz” term elsewhere, Ross County schools were already using this advanced network. Horizon now provides 500 MB connections to each local school system for slightly more than schools elsewhere in the region pay for 10 MB connections.

In 2007, Horizon was awarded a Federal Community Connect matching grant to build a fiber-to-the-home broadband network to the businesses and residents of the village of Darbyville in Pickaway County. The grant also provided funding to establish a community technology center. Over 280 registered users took advantage of the center in its first six months.

The absence of broadband to this region is more than just a missed opportunity. It represents a disadvantage that grows with each passing day. The lack of broadband service creates unfair disparities in education, health care and business. Horizon is committed to being an area leader in expanding affordable, scalable broadband access to communities throughout our region.