State lawmakers say that by October 2016, they'll have a plan to connect every home and business in the state to high-speed broadband Internet.
"We need to take this seriously," House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, told the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology on Wednesday. "We live in a different world now. It's a global environment."
The state and Internet service providers could build on top of the plan now underway to connect every school in the state to a new fiber-optic network, said a Department of Information Systems spokesman. Linking the schools is costing $50 million to $100 million in federal and state funds.
Gillam said companies won't set up shop where they can't communicate, and students can't research without reliable broadband.
He said rural residents can receive better health care through telemedicine, which allows doctors to communicate with patients over the Internet.
Gillam sat next to Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, who gave his support.
The committee defined broadband as 25 megabits per second, or mbps -- a speed that only 58 percent of Arkansans have access to, according to June 2014 data provided by Connect Arkansas, a defunct nonprofit established by the state to study the problem of Internet access.
The committee voted to find solutions and develop legislation to fix the problem.
In the meantime, members will visit rural communities and learn more about their problems. There is not yet a budget for the proposal, but there is a timeline for gathering information.
"One of the things, as you look at this particular issue, that's driven us to this point today is it doesn't really matter what report you look at," Gillam said. "I don't think there's a report that ranks us higher than 45th, 47th [in state connectivity]."
The committee chairman, Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, later said some studies have Arkansas lagging behind Alaska in broadband.
"We have made strides in this area. We've studied this to no end. There's been 31 pieces of legislation that have been passed on this in the last 10 years," Meeks said.
Yet the state ranks near last in broadband adoption, he said.
Representatives of broadband providers who attended the meeting did not have immediate answers as to how the expansion could be achieved.
"Right now it's too early to even give you an answer," said Joe Molinaro, executive director of the Arkansas Cable Telecommunications Association, after the meeting.
He said he would be checking in with members about possible plans over the next few days.
Cox Communications did not reply to a request for comment.
Ed Drilling, president of AT&T Arkansas, did not answer questions about how the goal could be carried out or how the school broadband initiative could be incorporated into a larger plan.
"High-speed Internet deployment is a priority for our state and, as a part of our continued investment, we're exploring new technologies to expand and enhance connectivity," he said.
Gillam said the nuts and bolts of the proposal would need to be worked out over the course of the year, but said using wireless technology could be a game-changer and public-private partnerships were also on the table.
Wireless Etc., based in Hot Springs, uses 15 towers in Garland County to provide wireless broadband access.
The company's owner, Steve Gill, said in an interview he thinks wireless broadband is more cost-effective than fiber optic cabling to connect rural areas where homes and businesses are far apart.
"[Fiber] is a real costly way to provide broadband to rural areas," he said. "Of course, we're in the wireless business, we come from towers to homes, but we feel that's the most efficient way of doing it and quickest way of doing it and the most cost-effective way of doing it."
Wireless technology is evolving, Gill said. In 2003, his company was able to provide 1 mbps of service to a customer. Now, he has cable packages of 25, 50 and 80 mbps.
"We don't talk about speeds anymore. We talk about the customers' needs at home," Gill said. "What do you do at home? Does everyone have an iPad? ... Do they have Netflix? Everyone thinks 'I have 25 [mbps], that's great,' but do they need that much speed? Nine times out of 10, no, they don't need it."
Janet Wilson, spokesman for the Information Systems Department, said the school broadband expansion project also could play a role in connecting surrounding communities.
Broadband providers are connecting three school districts per week to the upgraded Public School Computer Network. Workers were in the Manila School District on Wednesday and will begin hooking up the North Little Rock district today.
Wilson said the schools serve as anchor tenants, which provide wired infrastructure and spur demand for faster Internet.
"In communities where the state is the anchor tenant, businesses and homes in the same local community could potentially have access to up to 10 gigs of broadband," she said in an email. "The expectation is there will be enough increased demand to spur greater infrastructure investment in broadband by local, regional or national telecommunications providers."
Connect Arkansas, which was mandated to "promote broadband education and deployment in Arkansas" by Act 604 of 2007, provided broadband engineering studies and coverage maps to the state before it shut down earlier this year when federal funding ran out.
"Through the course of it, I think a lot of people thought that it was really an access issue," said Leslie Lane, senior vice president of Arkansas Capital Corp. Group, in September. "We discovered it was really more of an adoption issue than an access issue."
Arkansas Capital Corp. Group is a collection of nonprofits and businesses that provide funding and resources for entrepreneurs and small businesses. It had housed Connect Arkansas.
In a 2013 survey of 600 registered voters, 69 percent of Arkansans said they had high-speed Internet access at home, and 80 percent said they used the Internet at least occasionally.
Gillam said he knows the state has been making progress. His farm in Judsonia got Internet four years ago.
He said his signal was low last night as he was finalizing his goals for Wednesday's meeting, but he knows the state is making progress.
"Our companies in the state right now need it to function, especially in rural areas," he said. "Our farms, our businesses in rural Arkansas need this to move forward."
Information for this article was contributed by Spencer Willems of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 10/29/2015