Education Week  

Billions of dollars in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband grants have begun to flow toward the nation’s rural communities, aimed at erasing critical gaps in service and speed that hamper many rural schools or simply shut them out.

The grants and projects vary widely, from funding fixed wireless broadband in Michigan to providing mobile broadband access to rural Alabama. Yet all the projects focus primarily on unserved or underserved communities and in many instances will provide discounted service to anchor institutions in communities such as schools and libraries. That has some rural advocates saying these public investments, under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, or BTOP, have the potential to alter the playing field for rural schools and the communities they serve.

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