Marshfield company, OTC to get federal technology grants

Marshfield-based Sho-Me Technologies LLC will receive a $26.6 million grant, and OTC will receive more than $600,000 of the $5 million grant to the state’s Department of Higher Education.

The federal funding was awarded to Missouri through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Sho-Me Technologies plans to expand broadband services in 30 south and central Missouri counties, including Greene, Christian and Webster, said Sho-Me spokesman Jerry Hartman, and OTC plans to provide a new public computing center at its Lebanon campus, said OTC spokesman Joel Doepker.

Sho-Me Technologies will enhance and expand its fiber optic middle-mile network to 66,000 businesses and more than 260,000 households with a grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

“The midmile is the superhighway that will be laid in place for last-mile providers that exist. It gives them that onramp in a particular community,” Hartman said. Last-mile providers are the providers that will serve individuals in the communities.

The 1,380-mile network would be the backbone infrastructure for last-mile providers to deliver broadband to homes, businesses, schools, libraries, hospitals, public safety agencies and other facilities, Nixon said Tuesday in a conference call from Versailles.

In the agreement, the company will provide a match of $11.4 million to the federal grant, bringing the total project cost to approximately $38 million, Hartman said.

The 30 counties served by Sho-Me Technologies are: Benton, Camden, Christian, Cole, Cooper, Crawford, Dallas, Douglas, Franklin, Gasconade, Greene, Hickory, Howell, Laclede, Maries, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Oregon, Osage, Ozark, Pettis, Phelps, Polk, Shannon, Stone, Taney, Texas, Webster and Wright.

The award to OTC was $600,000 of a $5 million grant from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to the Missouri Department of Higher Education to seven community colleges.

OTC-Lebanon will use its portion of the funds to create a computer center in one of two recently donated buildings valued at $2.6 million by fall 2011, Doepker said. He said four new computer classrooms would be built with a total of 104 computer workstations.

“The point is to provide opportunities for people who may not have or have limited access to Internet,” Doepker said, adding that the college also would offer Internet-use classes.