The Kansas Office of Broadband Development (KOBD) has been awarded nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service through its new Broadband Technical Assistance (BTA) grant program. The $997,000 grant will fund pre-engineering design studies in six rural Kansas counties to help reduce costs and identify avoidable barriers as broadband is deployed there. To develop a roadmap for future broadband deployment, the studies will analyze population density, topography, and various census data.