“But the thing I think we need to be mindful of is other states are trying to do exactly what we’re trying to do, because they’ve just all gone through COVID, they’ve gone through 2020 as well, so if we’re going to be competitive and really continue to grow as a state, we need to make investments like this.”

Key to Reynolds’ proposed legislation, House Bill 133, is that the money would fund up to 75 percent of projects establishing broadband access with upload and download speeds of 100 megabits per second in areas with no service or lower-speed service. The state’s current average download speed is 78.9 megabits per second — the second slowest in the nation.

“The 100 meg by 100 meg is critical for any business, any homeowner, students and more so now that we’re doing Zoom calls and those types of things,” Fencl said, explaining high download speeds but low upload speeds often cause outages because upload speed won’t work if the download speed is saturated. “That synchronous upload speed has to be there.”

Just 18.5 percent of Iowans have access to affordable Internet and the average download speed is the second worst in the nation. But Gov. Reynolds hopes to get Iowans connected over the next three years.

Martinez Named Director of Colorado Broadband Office – Broadband Initiatives Report

Four issues through changing how Colorado governs, maps, funds and deploys broadband.

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