Arkansas Rural Connect Grants Are Available

An additional $100 million dollars is being made available through the Arkansas Rural Connect program to improve broadband internet in the state. In addition to the extra funds being allocated, state officials say rural electric cooperatives and their subsidiaries are now eligible to receive the funds.
The additional resources come after $25 million dollars in state and CARES act funding was provided for internet improvements. So far, 19 grants have been awarded for companies to partner with Arkansas communities that are lacking broadband speed internet. Nashville is among the 19. Premiere Holdings recently received $448,500 dollars to improve the internet speeds here. As far as dollar amounts of the grants already given, Nashville’s is the second lowest amount received. Emmet has the lowest amount at $193,000 dollars. The other grant recipient in this region has been Montgomery County, where nearly $1.65 million dollars will be spent by Windstream to improve the broadband speeds.