We’ve been bringing you some of the stories about new broadband projects starting up around the country, bringing both jobs and opportunity to underserved and rural areas. To that end, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the Agriculture Department has now posted its guidelines for applying for grants awarded through the Broadband Infrastructure Program.

Other project getting off the ground include a “last-mile” project in Missouri that will: “build a so-called last-mile fiber network to supply high-speed access to some 5,000 homes and nearly 60 anchor institutions — hospitals, schools, libraries and public safety operations.”

And in Mississippi: “[The] Office of the Governor and broadband mapping firm BroadMap have announced that they plan to work together to collect and verify the availability, speed and location of high-speed Internet access across the state.

“Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has said the most important first step in bolstering the state’s broadband is determining which areas of the state lack the necessary technological infrastructure. ‘Expanding broadband access is essential to education, health care and job creation in Mississippi,’ according to a statement on the state’s official Web site.”