On June 11, Arkansas library leaders, community partners, and statewide stakeholders gathered to attend the Arkansas Opportunity Online Broadband Summit. Participants heard from Governor Mike Beebe, Senator Mark Pryor and Arkansas Speaker of the House Robbie Wills as they explored ways to increase connectivity in Arkansas' libraries. Watch speeches from the summit:

Experts from all corners of the Southeast United States gathered at Benedict College earlier this month to discuss the state of broadband in their states and ways to further their interests.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $6.9 million pilot grant to public libraries in seven states today to improve the speed of Internet connections.

Speed Matters has released our second

The Broadband Advisory Council and Connect Arkansas were both formed by the Arkansas Legislature, and are working towards statewide high speed Internet access. Representatives from these organizations as well as state government officials, academics and members of the business community recently came together during the fourth annual Breakthrough Solutions Conference in Little Rock.

During a recent meeting in Little Rock, Federal Communications Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein and Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor joined rural advocates and educators to hail the Universal Service Fund as a route to bring high speed Internet access to rural areas.

Thanks to our 80,000 Speed Testers, the Speed Matters Campaign has been making waves around the country. On Monday we released a state-by-state report and interactive map on U.S. internet speeds based on the test results.

More than 80,000 people have taken the Speed Matters Speed Test to learn the actual speed of their internet connections. We've used the results of all those speed tests to create the first-ever state-by-state report on internet speeds across America. Our findings were deeply troubling.

The movement to achieve universal high speed internet access had taken hold all over the U.S. The latest region to take steps to break the digital divide is the Mississippi Delta.

Hempstead County, Arkansas, is the latest American rural community to take steps toward high speed internet access. The University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service has teamed up with Hempstead County for the pilot project of its new program -- Connected Communities for the 21st Century.