Grants bring faster internet speeds to Rockwell City library

Internet connection speeds are about to pick up at the Rockwell City Public Library.
A protracted process came to a culmination last week, when a crew began the final steps to install the fiberoptic cable. Library patrons should be noticing faster download and upload speeds by the end of the year, Librarian Denise Pohl said Friday.
“We needed to do something to keep up with the demand on our internet,” Pohl said. “Someone recommended the (Iowa Communications Network), which is fiber. We were thinking long-term and trying to keep up with technology and its changes.”
Many days, internet users can see as the connection slows down, Pohl said, particularly as more users log on. Right now, the library gets about 1 megabyte of download speed. With the ICN line, that should increase to 6 megabytes, with the potential to go faster if the need presents itself, and if funding becomes available.
ICN provides fiberoptic internet connections to school, hospitals, sheriff’s departments and libraries across the state. With grants from the Rockwell City Rotary Club, the Calhoun County Community Foundatino, the Roy. J. Carver Charitable Foundation and the Rockwell City Library Foundation, library officials came up with the roughly $20,000 needed to bore the route for the cable and have the fiberoptic line installed.