South Dakota State Broadband Office

Governor Kristi Noem said half of the counties with rural areas show that one in four people don’t have efficient internet access. Other counties have families without any reliable access. Noem said it’s important to close the broadband gap in South Dakota.

In 2019, Governor Kristi Noem made a state of the state address and said, “I want to bring in companies with emerging technologies in the fixed wireless arena that may offer more cost-efficient ways to provide fast, reliable service to our most difficult to serve locations….we’re developing a series of public-private partnerships to help overcome the challenges of service in rural areas and achieve the ambitious goals we’ve set for South Dakota.”

The state was offered a $5 million grant program in 2019 to improve broadband services for residents. The state wants to increase the grant in subsequent years.

The applicants were asked to be willing to provide at least a 50 percent financial match from the provider, minimum speed of 25 Megabits per second download and three Mbps upload per subscriber, and the ability to expand the technology as needed.