A bill that passed both the Iowa House and Senate is awaiting Governor Kim Reynolds signature to become law.

House District 20 Representative Ray Sorensen floor managed the policy side of the broadband internet access bill. He says they created a tier system for underserved and communities not connected to the internet. The top tier are those areas that have a 25 megabytes per second (mbps) download and a three mdps upload connection would qualify for a 75-percent grant match. The next tier would qualify for a 50-percent match and the lowest tier is a 35-percent match.

Sorensen talks about how the pandemic highlighted the “desert areas” of the state when it comes to internet connectivity.

“Our hope is to kind of cure those because COVID highlighted such a need for broadband access. As we work from home, as we look to telehealth, as we look for precision ag, as we look to be educated from home, those are important aspects.”  

While Sorensen points out one of his main goals was speed of deployment instead of using what the governor had outlined for a standard 100mbps/100mbps connection, he had to make some compromises.

“I would’ve liked to see this be a little bit more technology agnostic. Allow for a little bit lower speeds, yes, but to allow some wireless providers to provide maybe not quite the 100(mbps)/100(mbps) but there’s going to be a lot of providers that maybe lose out on some of these grants just because they can’t provide that 120(mbps) or that 100(mbps)/100(mbps) connection.”    

Sorensen says the appropriations side of the bill, with the governor’s proposal of $450 million over three years, continues to be debated within the respective appropriations committees.