The Denver Business Journal is reporting that hundreds of rural Colorado schools may be connected by a 1-gigabit broadband network by 2014, thanks to growing support at the federal level for a $100.6 million grant as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

The initative is led by Eagle-Net, a Longmont-based nonprofit consortium whose mission, according to its Web site, includes, "to enable access for technology-rich, quality education to every student in all 178 Colorado public school districts via broadband network services."

An Eagle-Net White Paper on the Statewide Broadband Initiative juxtaposes statistics indicating that "the need for Broadband connectivity in schools will increase more than 700 percent by the year 2011," and, "Colorado districts average approximately 55 percent of the national average bandwidth."

The Denver Rotary Club believes the iniative "will have a major impact on literacy and educational achievement for our children in Colorado," and has launched an online petition to substantiate support.

Additional information on ARRA and Colorado education is available on Governor Ritter's website.

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Mike Hanbery is the founder and principal of Hanbery Marketing, Social Media Professionals. Mike writes on social media and marketing at http://HanberyMarketing.com/blog.

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