Clatonia farmer Emily Haxby, a member of Nebraska’s Gage County Board, looked at federal broadband maps and checked to see who was missing. It turned out that the maps recorded rural homes and businesses as being “served” by broadband, but no, they weren’t.
So after checking her home county, she tackled verification statewide to find 11,367 farms, homes, and other locations listed as having broadband, but they didn’t. The result is an opportunity for Nebraska to qualify for additional funds through the BEAD Act, part of President Biden’s “Internet for All” initiative.
MY RURAL AMERICA recommends rural readers check their state maps. Rural Electric and other local power companies should be willing to help. U.S. regulators have set the standard for high-speed Internet as services that offer download speeds of 25 Mbps or faster. A study done some time ago (likely now outdated) found Internet speeds in Iowa’s rural counties where Internet service companies claimed had high-speed Internet not meeting federal standards. Almost all of Iowa’s rural counties then had rates under 15 Mbps, so not “high-speed.”