Missouri

One year has passed since Brightspeed became the fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US, and it’s made some notable progress in its $2 billion multi-year fiber deployment. Most of Brightspeed’s footprint is currently served with copper, but the operator is undertaking fiber builds in 17 states and officially launched fiber service on March 1, 2023.

The Federal Communications Commission committed $37.7 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program, which provides digital tools and services to support students in communities across the country. This funding commitment supports applications from the third application window, benefitting approximately 100,000 students nationwide, including students in Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. This funding commitment supports approximately 220 schools and school districts, 2 library systems, and 4 consortia.

Plans to spend Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program dollars to connect underserved populations could be impacted by state elections, according to broadband policy experts. Among the ten states that got the largest BEAD allocations, three (Missouri, North Carolina and Louisiana) will hold gubernatorial elections before the end of 2024. Executive Director of ConnectLA Veneeth Iyengar—Louisiana’s broadband program—plans to have as much BEAD work as possible done before th

In September 2021, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) awarded the Missouri Association of Councils of Government (MACOG) a 

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) made $714 million in grants and loans to connect thousands of rural residents, farmers and business owners in 19 states to reliable, affordable high-speed internet.

Missouri was among the lucky winners of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, receiving the third highest allocation at $1.74 billion. But whether that amount will be more than enough or just right to cover all unserved and underserved locations is “the ultimate question,” said BJ Tanksley, director of Missouri’s Office of Broadband Development. “I think the thing about this is it also is a call to us, there’s just a lot of work to be done across the state.” Tanksley said that while Missouri “always predicted” it would receive a relatively high BEAD allotment, the stat