IL HJR0112

Creates the Rural Broadband Deployment Task Force consisting of 13 members including state legislators, agency directors, and representatives from commerce, education, transportation, and technology sectors.

Task Force co-chairs are appointed by the Senate President and Speaker of the House, with additional members appointed by Senate and House minority leaders and various state agency heads or their designees.

Charges the Task Force with identifying state-owned rural telecommunications infrastructure available for lease, studying ongoing infrastructure improvements including underground fiber-optic conduits, and analyzing coordination between public and private telecommunications deployment.

Directs the Task Force to study available funding sources for rural telecommunications, examine legislative initiatives for fund distribution entities, promote competition among rural service providers, and catalog the state's rural telecommunications infrastructure.

Task Force members serve without compensation with administrative support from the Department of Innovation & Technology, and must submit a final report to the General Assembly by December 31, 2018, after which the Task Force is dissolved.