Researchers to Help Rural Arkansas Communities Expand Broadband Access

Researchers in the University of Arkansas Department of Communication have embarked on a statewide project to help small communities in Arkansas plan and implement broadband internet access.

The researchers will gather and analyze data on residents’ internet use and share this information with community leaders to help them make decisions about broadband services appropriate for their communities.

“Making good decisions about broadband access is easier with information on how, when and where local residents use the internet,” said Ron Warren, project director and associate professor of communication. “Getting this information can be time-consuming and expensive. Unfortunately, local communities don’t have the money or resources to do this on their own.”

Ron Warren

Warren expanded the project after talking to Nathan Smith, research director at the Arkansas Department of Commerce. Smith manages the State Broadband Office, which is implementing AR Rural Connect, an initiative by Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas General Assembly to provide broadband internet access to all Arkansas communities with at least 500 people by the end of 2022.

AR Rural Connect will distribute a total of $4.7 million in grants to these communities to help them identify and contract with internet service providers. However, the grants do not include money or resources for local communities to gather the kind of data necessary to make informed decisions about type of service and best provider.

In 2019, Warren conducted a pilot version of the statewide project by gathering data for the city of Fayetteville, which sought information for its digital master plan. Warren and researchers in the Department of Communication’s Center for Communication Research surveyed Fayetteville residents about their internet use and identified barriers to maintaining consistent and reliable internet connections for residents who were not online.

For the statewide project, Warren and the center’s researchers are working with eight communities for the initial round of data collection. Projects in Lonoke, Jasper and Charleston have begun already, and data collection in the five other towns will begin as soon as the researchers finalize the kind of data they will seek and methods of collection.

“We should have data from those eight towns sometime in November,” Warren said. “From there, our goal is to pool together data from cities and towns across the state, which we hope will give us a decent snapshot of internet use in smaller communities.”

The center can provide research services at little or no cost to the communities, Warren said. The researchers can also partner with local communities to dig deeper and identify specific needs for broadband use by healthcare providers, schools, and organizations that promote civic and community life.