The Arkansas State Broadband Office – ARConnect – continues to leverage American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to drive affordable fiber access into underserved parts of the Natural State.

Three funding rounds are winding their way to completion, as fiber connectivity is being made available to rural markets for the first time, with a heavy reliance on local cooperatives.

ARConnect officials say they’ve now awarded more than $534 million in grants that will expand access to 130,000 locations in total, with most of the projects completed by 2030. Including matching funds, $1 billion is expected to be invested in total, bringing notable improvements to an estimated 875,000 Arkansas residents.

The Arkansas ARC Grant Program began in February 2021, using federal Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) Program funding propped up by ARPA, which both Republican Arkansas state senators voted against.

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As of last December, state officials have committed all but $4,832 of its $1.57 billion in ARPA funds to active projects in the state.

ARC Round 1 doled out $118 million in grants to 76 projects, expanding access to approximately 55,700 homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions.

ARC Round 2 awarded $274.4 million in grants to 87 different projects, impacting approximately 54,000 homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions.

Municipal networks in the United States have proven that when dollars are invested in publicly owned information infrastructure, they often return value back to the community several times over. This new fact sheet [pdf] highlights municipal broadband success stories from across the country and some of the many benefits the networks have brought to the communities they serve. 

These networks are directly accountable to the community and have proved themselves for more than 20 years in some cases, bringing lower prices to households than the large private providers. Municipal networks and partnerships account for 9 of the top 10 fastest broadband networks in the nation.

Download Snapshots of Municipal Broadband: A Much-Needed Part of America's Digital Ecosystem [pdf] here.

For timely updates, follow Christopher Mitchell or MuniNetworks on Twitter and sign up to get the Community Broadband weekly update.

Conway is right in the middle – in the middle of Arkansas with its utility company, Conway Corp, in the middle of beefing up its broadband network.

In this city of 66,000 – home to the information technology company Acxiom Corporation and three colleges – residents and businesses have long relied on Conway Corp for more than just electricity since the utility first launched its cable and Internet service in 1997.

Conway Corp, which has been Conway’s electric utility for the past 90 years, has a unique relationship with the city’s government. “We are different in the way we are set up as compared to many other municipal networks. We are set up as a non-profit. We lease the network and operate it on behalf of the city,” explained Conway Corp Chief Marketing Officer Crystal Kemp.

At the heart of the utility’s network management has been the on-going work to stay ahead of the curve.

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“When we launched Internet services in 1997, upstream capacity wasn’t a concern and systems were built with the average homes (and) businesses per geographic area, or node, at 500. Today those numbers are less than 95 per node. That’s been achieved through physical changes in the network and changes in our engineering practices,” Conway Corp’s Chief Technology Officer Jason Hansen told us last week. 

Upgrades to the Hybrid-Fiber-Coax (HFC) network began to take shape in 2019 with the deployment of DOCSIS 3.1, allowing Conway Corp to double its downstream capacity. They also began upgrading equipment that paved the way for expanded use of the RF (Radio Frequency) spectrum to boost the network’s bandwidth. As of December 2020, about 50 percent of the upstream upgrade work had been completed with the remainder expected to be finished by the summer of 2021.

Conway, Arkansas, has been offering Internet access for approximately 20 years; in December, it will begin offering Gigabit (1,000 Megabits per second) download connectivity to the community. Conway's highest tier Internet access will cost $94.95 per month. According to Conway Corp.'s announcement, the utility will use a 32-channel cable modem to deliver the faster download speeds via the current infrastructure. Upload speeds will be 50 Mbps.

In a statement, reproduced in Multichannel News, CEO Richard Arnold said:

“Internet usage has grown and will continue to as cloud-based products and services become more prevalent. Gigabit download speeds seem a luxury today, but may be tomorrow’s necessity.”

Between 1995 and 1997, the utility completed a citywide cable rebuild in which they used both fiber and coaxial cable. The $5.6 million project allowed them to offer Internet access to Conway subscribers. As an early adopter of municipal Internet access, Conway’s move toward Gig connectivity makes sense:

“For several years, we have been on a strategic path toward gigabit service,” said chief technology officer Jason Hansen in a statement. “With this initiative, Conway Corp is embracing its position as an Internet technology leader.”

Conway Corp’s Internet rates also include:

• Basic : 6 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload - $36.95 per month
• Broadband 25 : 25 Mbps / 3 Mbps - $41.95 per month
• Broadband 50 : 50 Mbps / 5 Mbps - $51.95 per month
• Broadband 100 : 100 Mbps / 10 Mbps - $84.95 per month