Senator Wants Money Returned For Undelivered Broadband

AdminJanuary 22, 2020

Missouri forked over $5 million dollars to make sure rural communities could have better internet access, and now one one state Senator wants to make sure the companies who are getting the state’s money to provide the service are actually delivering it or give the money back.

Rolla Senator Justin Brown has proposed a bill that says there should be consequences if internet service providers are delivering speeds lower than promised.

“Our rural communities have been short changed. It seems as if customers pay more and more, and yet they receive the same or even worse services. My hope is the telecommunications companies, before it gets to that point of government intervention, will do the right thing. We need more access to broadband. We need better cellular services in rural areas. Hopefully there will be more and more cooperation between competing networks or more investment from networks bringing rural Missouri on-par with the rest of the state.”

Brown’s bill would make providers pay back their grants if they fail to deliver internet download speeds of at least 25Mb per second and meet a 3Mb per second upload threshold.

These speeds are necessary to run farms and other internet-dependent businesses, as well as households.