Rural Missouri — we want high speed

 

Missouri Governor Roy Blunt is trying to get to the bottom of why his rural communities face few, if any, broadband options. He appointed a 25 individuals to the Rural High-Speed Internet Access Task Force. From a Springfield, MO editorial:

There’s no doubt that in many parts of rural Missouri, and southwest Missouri is no exception, broadband services are hard to find. You don’t have to drive far outside the city limits of Springfield to find communities that don’t have access to broadband cable services and inexpensive high-speed Internet. Indeed, in today’s high-tech world, having access to high-speed Internet is necessary for good business, and as such, bringing more of it to rural Missouri would be good for the state’s economy and good for those consumers who don’t have it now.

Blunt directed the task force to: (link)

  • Assess the current level of high-speed Internet access available in Missouri
  • Identify barriers to deployment to underserved areas including economic, geographic, regulatory, and market barriers
  • Identify potential options to increase the deployment of high-speed Internet access in underserved communities
  • Review best practices in other states to increase high-speed Internet access
  • Recommend statutory, regulatory, and policy changes needed to increase the availability of high-speed Internet services across the state.

But until T1’s blanket rural Missouri, people are finding ways to stay connected:

In many southwest Missouri counties, cattle ranchers buy and sell livestock online using high-speed service through satellite dishes.