Beginning in mid-2017, DEEDP endeavored to answer several questions arising surrounding broadband and its impact on rural Missouri. Key questions included broadband’s impact on out-migration and in-migration, the impact of low services, slow speed broadband and relatively high prices compared to areas with fiber’s high-speed broadband and low prices. In the analysis the economic and social impact of high-speed broadband was both qualitatively and quantitatively presented in an easy to understand format designed for policy makers and business executives.

On June 1, 2020, nearly one hundred individuals in locations throughout Missouri and
across the United States gathered “online” to help develop a “Plan” to bring broadband to a
Missouri community — Bollinger County.

There was a time when telephone lines did not span the U.S., proudly marking the landscape in nearly every conceivable populated area. But telephones, as with refrigerators and light bulbs before them, soon became essential.