Bradford County Commissioners recently voted to allocate up to $5.2 million to help pay for a planned $10.2 million project to install fiber optic cable lines that will help bring Internet and cell phone service to additional areas of the county.

The Progress Authority is completing an application for a $5 million state grant that will pay the rest of the cost of the project, said Bradford County Commissioner Daryl Miller.

"This is really terrific," Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko said of the project. "This is cutting-edge stuff."

"I think this will be a model, not just for the state, but for the rest of the country," said Bradford County Commissioner Ed Bustin.

The $5.2 million that the county has earmarked for the project comes from the Act 13 funds that the county has received, he said.

The project, which has been in the planning stages for two years, involves the installation of three loops of multi-strand fiber-optic lines in the county, which would be a kind of information highway that would carry Internet, phone, and television signals, the commissioners said. The loops will be interconnected to each other and to two high-speed internet lines that would connect Bradford County to the rest of the world.