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16 June 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — The federal government is giving Kansas almost $43 million to improve internet speeds around the state. Kansas officials say the money will expand high-speed internet to remote and underserved towns.
Kansas calls it the Middle-Mile Partnership. It says the middle mile is the section of the broadband network that connects the first mile (global) network to the last mile network, the one that brings internet directly to your home or business.
(Courtesy Kansas Department of Commerce)
The grant will fund a 682-mile fiber optic network to connect Liberal to Garden City, Pratt to Wichita, Kismet to Minneola, Wichita to Pittsburg, and Pittsburg to Overland Park.
The Kansas Department of Commerce, Kansas Department of Transportation, Kansas Research and Education Network (KanREN), and private providers submitted a grant for the funds.
Governor Laura Kelly also sent a letter supporting the application. In her letter, she said that around 100,000 Kansans are estimated to have no access to home internet. She said the project will provide high-speed broadband to 27,000 underserved homes and businesses. And that it will go through some counties with higher poverty rates than the national average.
On Friday, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Kansas is getting the grant.
NTIA says the network will affect these counties: Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Butler, Cherokee, Clark, Coffey, Crawford, Finney, Franklin, Greenwood, Haskell, Jackson, Johnson, Kingman, Labette, Linn, Lyon, Meade, Miami, Montgomery, Neosho, Osage, Pratt, Sedgwick, Seward, Wilson, and Wyandotte.
The federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds the NTIA’s Middle Mile Program. The Kansas project is just one of 35 projects sharing $930 million in grants.