In an era when internet access is increasingly necessary, new broadband infrastructure is bringing high-speed internet to residents of Cass County, and a Van Buren District Library program is lending mobile hotspots.
As of mid-September, around 600 households in Cass County had access to high-speed internet for the first time following the completion of a broadband infrastructure project. The joint effort between Cass County, Midwest Energy Communications, and the State of Michigan began in 2023. It was funded with a $250,000 grant from U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund, which was matched by the county.
Now, MEC is setting its sights on connecting nine townships in the county to the newly-installed infrastructure.
The mobile hotspot-lending program is a collaboration between the Van Buren District Library and non-profit internet provider Mobile Beacon. This initiative has addressed the lack of affordable and reliable coverage in rural parts of Van Buren county since it launched in 2022.
According to the library, Hotspots provided residents with over 300,000 gigabytes of data in the first half of 2025, 45 times the average among Mobile Beacon’s almost 2,000 library partners nationwide. You can borrow the hotspots from any of the Van Buren District Library’s seven branches with a library card.
