Arkansas State Broadband Director Aims for Competitive, Business-Friendly Market

“We have worked really hard within the confines we’ve been given to create one of the most competitive, free-market-based, business-friendly (or business-encouraging) types of programs,” said Arkansas broadband director Glen Howie. Howie said Arkansas’ broadband funding program is flexibly designed, allowing providers to use census block groups (CBGs) to align their project footprints, while accounting for their financial modeling. Before Howie joined the Arkansas State Broadband Office, providers were able to draw their own project footprints and submit their designs to the state. “But when we went to CPF [the U.S. Treasury Capital Projects Fund], the state defined project footprints on a county-wide basis, and providers would bid on those.” Howie said the Arkansas State Broadband Office’s goal is that 90% or more of the awards for deployments will be for fiber-based projects.