A new report generated by Missouri for federal broadband officials says Texas County ranks as one of the top counties in the state without adequate internet service.
The 77-page report is Missouri’s five-year plan to improve or bring faster internet to the Show-Me State.
The Missouri Office of Broadband Development (OBD) has submitted Missouri’s BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment) five-year action plan (https://ded.mo.gov/media/pdf/bead-five-year-action-plan) to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Texas County is listed as No. 3 in the state with the highest percent of locations unserved and underserved outside of funded areas (59 percent) to make improvements. Carter County comes in at 93 percent, followed by Knox at 66 percent. Other counties on the list: Shannon (54 percent), Clark (51), Stone (46), Reynolds (43), Atchison (42), Ripley (40) and Washington (39).
In Texas County that translates into 7,198 locations. Howell County ranks seventh in the state with 4,882 locations.
“The publication of this report comes at a crucial moment for Missourians. Hundreds of thousands of Missourians have been left behind by the advent of the digital world,” according to the report. “With the allocation of $1.7 billion through the BEAD Program the state finally has resource commensurate with the size of the problem.”
It adds: “If the job was easy, it would have been completed decades ago. This report presents information about the dimensions of the problem – the hundreds of thousands of Missourians physically cut off from high-quality broadband service, and the hundreds of thousands more that appear to be connected on any given broadband map but cannot take full advantage of that connection due to cost, limited comfort with digital technology, or other barriers.”
State officials said the publication represents an important landmark in the progress of the state’s “Connecting All Missourians” initiative. This plan is a requirement of the BEAD program and provides a high-level outline of how Missouri will invest BEAD and Digital Equity Act (DEA) funding and other broadband-related resources across the state. It also highlights the vision, goals, objectives and strategies to help connect all Missourians to affordable, reliable high-speed internet and enable them to fully engage in the digital economy.
The content of plan will inform the state’s BEAD initial proposal, which lays out the guidelines that will govern the spending of more than $1.7 billion allocated to Missouri for broadband deployment through the BEAD program.
The publication comes after the state took several steps to receive input: A survey, focus groups and stakeholder engagement meetings held across the state over the last year, including one in West Plains. This data-gathering was instrumental in preparing the plan, officials said.
There will be an opportunity for public comment on the state’s initial proposal in October. OBD welcomes feedback on the plan and strongly encourages interested stakeholders to participate in the initial proposal comment period.
Hope it is faster than what I have now. It really gets aggravating.
I just ran a speed test through Sho Me Technowlegies and got a reading of Download 5.18 mbps and Upload 4.06 mbps. that’s a long way from “high speed” and actually beter than it has been recently. This is through Interconnect who’s service, other than speed has been great.