Sho-Me Power, state request $142M in stimulus funds

The state of Missouri and a Marshfield based electric power co-op are asking for federal stimulus money to bring Internet access to more than 90 percent of Missourians within five years.

Gov. Jay Nixon was at the Marshfield headquarters of Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative and Sho-Me Technologies on Aug. 12 to announce MoBroadbandNow, a partnership to install broadband Internet infrastructure statewide.

The state and four telecommunications companies have applied for $142.3 million in funding through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act to provide so-called "middle-mile" infrastructure, which takes Internet coverage into rural areas so that local providers can connect to individual homes and businesses.

If approved, the state has pledged $25.2 million in matching funds to purchase the equipment necessary to make the new connections; that money would come from a pool of $40 million from the federal budget stabilization fund, which the legislature approved earlier this year for broadband projects.

Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said the program would increase broadband coverage to 91 percent from 79 percent of the state population by 2015. While federal announcements about the state programs selected to receive funding likely won't start until December, Holste said the state hopes that the public-private partnership aspect of Missouri's application will make it more attractive. The other last-mile partners signed on are Big River Telephone, Ralls County Electric Cooperative and Poplar Bluff Internet.

"We think that ... Missouri is going to receive strong consideration from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce," Holste said.

"This is an unprecedented opportunity to get the necessary financial boost for building middle-mile infrastructure that to this point, for the private sector, has not been cost-feasible."

The program is a natural extension of work Sho-Me Power already is doing, according to Jerry Hartman, the co-op's manager of administrative services.

Hartman said the power company has been working since 1997 to put in fiber-optic cable to support its power-grid data collection efforts.

"With this stimulus event, we felt we could build middle-mile infrastructure, and we found that the state of Missouri had a common goal to serve the folks in rural Missouri. That's where the partnership developed," Hartman said.

While the co-op has the same overall goals as the state in terms of broadband access, both Holste and Hartman said it would take stimulus funding to make such a large-scale project financially feasible. It includes laying 2,500 miles of fiber-optic cable and construction of more than 200 broadband towers across the state.

"The stimulus money allows access in areas where folks aren't clustered together like an NFL city, with economies of scale so companies invest on their own, but folks still have the need," Hartman said, comparing the situation to the rural electrification efforts of the 1930s.

"Those folks wouldn't have gotten the electricity they needed. Now, broadband is going to be a necessity in rural America in the same way."

The program could have benefits beyond Internet access, however. Hartman said the work necessary to install the middle-mile infrastructure would require Sho-Me Power to create at least 300 contract jobs during the first three years.

It's that kind of public-private partnership and planning that Holste said should get the Missouri approach a favorable response from the federal government.

"You have to have the middle-mile infrastructure in place before you can look at the last-mile projects," he said. "We have an orderly plan, one that shows we're ready to go with this. It's not just an application that asks for federal money; it's an application that has a specific plan."[[In-content Ad]]