By: Katie Davila
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark – Arkansas is ranked among the worst states in the country for access to broadband internet connectivity.
“Broadband and internet access in general is important because its the gateway to economic opportunity, rather than people trying to get to Netflix, because to access jobs or financial information you need to be on the internet,” said Elton Turner, Director of Infrastructure Systems at the University of Arkansas.
On campus thousands of students and staff are trying to connect to different servers. Add in the structures of large buildings and the already difficult broadband connectivity and it can be almost impossible to get on a good wifi network.
In smaller cities many people cannot access wifi.
“Theres a lot of really far flung places in the state of Arkansas, and really its about the cost structure of can the companies that are providing the access afford to roll out what is very expensive infrastructure to a very small customer base,” Turner said.
661,000 Arkansans have access to only one wired provider, 230,000 people have no providers where they live at all.