Gov Hutchinson (R-AR) Announces the “Arkansas Rural Connect” Grant Program, $25 Million for Broadband Deployment

Following his July 23 announcement establishing the Arkansas State Broadband Office, Gov Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) announced “Arkansas Rural Connect,” a new $25 million grant program within the Arkansas State Broadband Office. The goal is to provide high-speed broadband to rural communities throughout Arkansas by 2022, as outlined in the State Broadband Plan released in May. The Arkansas Rural Connect (ARC) program will provide grants to qualifying communities of at least 500 people to deploy high-speed broadband to its residents. The high-speed broadband must have a rate of at least 25 megabits per second for download and 3 megabits per second for upload (25/3). Of this $25 million plan, the Arkansas Legislative Council is able to approve $5.7 million this year, and the balance will need to be appropriated in next year’s fiscal session.

The ARC program builds on the work of the Arkansas state legislature, which, on February 26, 2019, opened up new possibilities for Arkansas towns by enacting Act 198 of 2019. Before Act 198, government entities were forbidden to provide broadband to the public by the Telecommunications Regulatory Reform Act of 2013. Act 198 gave municipalities and other public entities new options to apply for funding to deploy broadband, but at that time, no state program existed that would allow municipalities to exercise their new powers under Act 198. With the introduction of the ARC grant program, towns will now have opportunities for funding from the state.