Dive Brief:

• Recognizing gaps in the broadband infrastructure supporting the Arkansas Public School Computer Network, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the state legislature are working to fill the gaps with an annual $13 million toward a broadband upgrade.
• The project is expected to be completed in July 2017, but some schools will be ready to go within a year. The differences in launch times are largely due to school locations, as the state has wide connectivity discrepancies — particularly in its rural communities.
• The goal of the program is to provide at least 100 kbps of bandwidth per student, which eSchool News reports will provide faster connections in big schools and "sufficient connectivity" in smaller schools across all 276 school districts. 

Dive Insight:

The work will be completed by 22 vendors selected by Arkansas in a bidding war. AT&T and CenturyLink are some of the big companies included in the project, though eSchool News also reports that some "small one-town telephone companies" have been selected to participate. 

The upgrades are a smart moves on Arkansas' part and fall in line with President Barack Obama's ConnectEd Initiative, which aims to see high-speed broadband and wireless in 99% of America's schools by 2017.  If all goes according to plan in Arkansas, they should meet this goal. 

While broadband can feel daunting and expensive — many schools are not currently set up to support the sheer number of users they have in one building, as evidenced by issues with online tests in some states — there are resources like the FCC's E-rate program that exist to make it easier and cheaper for schools to become connected.