Second graders in rural Arkansas are still doing their homework in the McDonald’s parking lot, but the state is making quick strides to bridge the digital divide, putting broadband deployment in Arkansas ahead of other states in the Southeast, according to Arkansas State Broadband Office Director Glen Howie.
“Arkansas led the country in increased connectivity from 2021 to 2024,” Howie said. “In the second half of 2023 we had the sixth-highest reduction of unserved or underserved locations at 24%.”
A major player in that reduction? Arkansas’ electric cooperatives. Facing a lack of internet access in rural Arkansas, the utilities had the existing infrastructure and interest in customer satisfaction to lead the charge in broadband deployment.
Rob Roedel, senior director of corporate communications for the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, said some locations may serve only three customers for one mile of line.
“We’re running fiber to places most companies wouldn’t even look at because of the lack of density,” Roedel said. “But our obligation is to serve those people.”
And while Roedel said the cooperatives’ existing infrastructure assisted with deployment, it was still “a costly investment,” though he declined to say how costly. The company is currently in 72 out of 75 Arkansas counties, and plans to evaluate all 75 for broadband deployment. The cooperatives supply electricity to 74 counties.
The cooperatives have been working on a statewide fiber ring since 2018, Roedel said. The ring will connect all 17 of the state’s electric cooperative facilities in a “gigantic” network, which is overbuilt with excess capacity and connects the co-op’s operational and communication infrastructures.
The excess capacity allows room for future growth, and for large retailers to lease the capacity and decrease the cost of broadband for customers, Roedel said.
Howie said municipal utilities, the electric cooperatives and subsidiaries like Diamond State Networks of Jonesboro have been “tremendous” in the deployment of broadband across the state, and that Arkansas has a big mix of utilities acting as internet service providers (ISPs).
“From the beginning it’s been a great mix of companies. We’ve had small ISPs; there have been medium-sized ISPs; there have been large ISPs,” Howie said. “A lot of states don’t have that. They don’t have electric co-ops that are working so hard to get this job done.”
Roedel said only 20% of the cooperative’s deployment has been through grants, and the rest has come through private investment and loans. But that grant percentage may soon increase.
Upcoming BEAD Funding
Arkansas has $1.024 billion in federal Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) funding to deploy, representing the single largest investment in broadband infrastructure in the state’s history. The state has around 78,500 unserved locations eligible for BEAD funding, which is lower than surrounding Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Missouri.
The BEAD program “is more complex and restrictive than anything we’ve ever done before,” Howie said. Once the office’s initial proposal is approved, it will have 365 days to send awards to the U.S. Department of Commerce for approval.
The State Broadband Office has already submitted the initial proposal, and “approval could come at any day,” Howie said.
Every ISP that applies for the funding will be graded on a 100-point scale, a process that is significantly more involved than that used for awards in the past. The application process previously had only four steps: publish, apply, decisions and distribution. Now it has 16.
Once the BEAD funding has been provisionally awarded, the Commerce Department and the Arkansas General Assembly both have to approve the grants. From there, shovels can go in the ground for deployment, which Howie hopes will happen in the second half of 2025.
Howie said more than 30 ISPs have already pre-registered to apply, and that the office encourages competition in the application process.
“It’s better for the state this way,” Howie said. “Not all ISPs are everywhere, in every county. Some ISPs operate in a certain part of the state, or in a certain county or a certain part of a certain county. It takes all kinds to get it done.”
Assisting Arkansans
Since 2020, the state has awarded 182 projects as part of the Arkansas Rural Connect Grant program, totaling $533 million in local, state and federal grants, and 129,000 locations. The number of projects that have been completed stands at 141, impacting nearly 100,000 locations. Another 41 projects are in various stages of construction, set to connect an additional 31,000 locations.
Roedel said access to the internet can improve not only quality of life, but workforce development and health care as well. Howie and Roedel both said fiber is necessary for better education, as well as allowing access to telemedicine appointments and remote work opportunities.
“People have to remember that some of these areas have just never had fiber, so they’re not fully aware of everything they can do with it,” Roedel said. “Our vision is for somebody raised in southeast Arkansas to have access to the same health care, same communications, same job opportunities that they would have if they had to move to Dallas.”
But the projects to increase access mean nothing if Arkansans can’t afford service, Howie said.
“We could make Arkansas the most wired state in the country and run fiber to every single home and business in this state,” Howie said. “But if some of our folks can’t afford it, that’s a problem and we have to attack that issue.”
Howie said 25% of the BEAD application scores will be based on affordability, and that the state has designed the program to drive the dollar value down on the cost of projects, which should translate to lower costs to consumers when the projects are done.
“We’re not just focused on the access piece,” Howie said. “It’s foundational to everything, but if you don’t care for affordability and opportunity, it’s a completely wasted investment.”
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