Rural Broadband Funding Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
One of the South’s largest and most difficult economic development projects is wiring the entire region’s rural areas with high-speed Internet service. Vast areas of the region still cannot access broadband service. With $7.2 billion in appropriated funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, efforts are underway to bring service to much if not all of the rural South. Currently, broadband mapping and planning is being done in several Southern states. Through information we have received from each Southern state’s economic development department, SB&D has drawn its own map of which rural areas in the region currently have broadband service (in blue).
