By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Farm Bureau officials will be pushing Congress to expand broadband to all of rural America.
Missouri Farm Bureau spokesman Eric Bohl says though Congress approved money for broadband expansion in the CARES Act, no one knows yet how far that money will stretch.
“We’re not going to let up until everybody gets broadband availability at a reasonable and affordable price at their home and farm,” Bohl says.
Bohl acknowledges there has been progress, both on the national and state level, in expanding access to high-speed Internet to rural residents.
“But, there’s still a long way to go and we started from behind. So, we need to keep on pushing on it.”
Bohl says a study released by the FCC about four years ago disclosed that more than a million rural Missourians didn’t have broadband access.
“And that was more than any other state other than California or Texas,” according to Bohl. “You know, California and Texas have a whole heck of a lot more people than we do, total. And this is raw numbers. They are the only two states that had more than a million people unserved aside from Missouri.”
There has been progress since in expanding broadband access to rural America. Still, Bohl says obstacles remain to getting high-speed Internet to remote areas of the state.
“A lot of places in Missouri it’s pretty hard to get to,” Bohl points out. “And those last few miles are really expensive. Hopefully now we’re getting to the point where there’s enough resources out there that everyone is going to have the opportunity to log on at the speeds that they need to participate in the modern economy.”