The Gold Rush in Kansas

At the Kansas Broadband Summit, Stanley Adams, the broadband planning manager for the state's Department of Commerce reported that Kansas received over $250 million in broadband deployment grants and loans from the National Telecommunications and Infrastructure Administration (NTIA), which is part of the Department of Commerce and the Rural Utility Service (RUS), which is part of the Department of Agriculture.

That's a lot of amount of money for a smaller state, but Kansas has a significant rural population, and its leaders are aiming to make broadband available to all. The Kansas plan is comprehensive, covering everything from detailed mapping, to provider validation, and even adoption plans. And like any time you get a room of stakeholders engaged, new ideas were sparked on how to improve the plan. As an FCC staff person, it was a thrill for me to see and feel the excitement of a state actually implementing its broadband plan. And as with the beginnings of California's gold rush in 1879, the new broadband gold rush in Kansas promises great benefits to the state citizenry . "From a business standpoint, [broadband] means increased opportunities for entrepreneurship and new small-business development," Kansas Lt. Governor Findley said. "How many entrepreneurs out there have the next big-idea, but have no way to share it?" Kansans know that broadband is just as valuable as gold, and know the wealth it can bring.