Earlier this week, I posted a few thoughts on how the broadband gap isn’t isolated to rural areas of the U.S., but affects urban areas too.  I took that as an opportunity to encourage local governments and community groups to band together to tackle the issue themselves, in conjunction with the federal government’s broadband stimulus plan. 

Lynnette Luna from FierceBroadbandWireless wrote a great piece on Monday about a group of citizens in Georgia that did just that.  Local businesses, schools and community members were suffering without reliable broadband, so a few citizens banded together to find a solution.

The group, known as SGRITA (Southern Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority), has made major strides over the years, obtaining several million dollars in government grants and spectrum, including the 700 MHz license for its region.

Looking ahead, the SGRITA team is looking to obtain a portion of the federal stimulus funds to further expand the reach of its project.

In fact, according to the article, “SGRITA is also working in tandem with other counties developing their own broadband plans so that 21 counties in all could be blanketed with broadband access with help from stimulus money. In addition, other counties are mimicking SGRITA and going after state funds.”

Though these folks are in a rural region, not an urban one, I still wanted to take a moment to highlight the great work they are doing to raise awareness and broadband proliferation! 

Are there any broadband organizations in your area, working to overcome the digital divide?  How do you think community members can work together to solve this issue?