Stimulus funds for high-speed Internet access tangled up

[DainBramaged]

The Obama administration knew that there'd be a lot of interest in the $7.2 billion for high-speed Internet projects it included in last year's huge economic stimulus package.The goal was to quickly create tens of thousands of jobs and connect millions of poor and rural communities to broadband, a technology that's essential for economic development, modern medicine and education.

But officials had no idea that the demand for the cash would be so overwhelming. They also were bombarded with questions and challenges from large cable and phone companies including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T.

The combination has swamped the agencies in charge and created a bottleneck that might threaten disbursement. After nearly a year, about 7% of the funds has been assigned to specific projects.

As a result, "There's significant doubt as to whether the monies can be awarded before the end of September," when the funding authorization expires, says Dan Hays, who directs the communications practice at consulting firm PRTM.

Officials scrapped their original plan to assign $4 billion by the end of 2009, followed by two more funding rounds. Instead they're poised to hit as much as $2 billion when the first round ends this month, as they begin to consider applications to the second — and last — round up to March 15.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-02-09-broadband09_CV_N.htm

[DainBramaged]

1. This part pissed me off

For example, Comcast, Charter Communications and AT&T questioned an application for $13.5 million to provide broadband services in Columbia County, Ga. And Time Warner Cable said it offers broadband to more than half of the homes in an area of southwestern Ohio and northern West Virginia to be covered by a $12.6 million application to build a 710-mile fiber-optic ring.

AT&T says that its filings were "not objections," but "provided information about areas where we currently offer broadband service."


Try to delay the monies being spent until the bill expires. What scumbags.

[laughingliberal]

2. Just Damn It! This is one of the projects that got through in the bill that would have helped a lot.

And now they say they may not be able to award the money before the authorization runs out. Is there nothing that creates jobs that we can implement without a clusterfuck?

[-wulf-]

3. No

Not from Washington anyway.

I lived in Montana for awhile, and if I could have high-speed cable internet back in 2000 (multiple choices at that) in the middle of Montana, I think it is safe to say that providing high speed internet isn't going to be an actual problem.

[laughingliberal]

5. The area where my house is doesn't have it and probably never will without some project of this type

Of course, we have an asshat Repubican for governor who probably wouldn't dream of applying for the funds to bring us into the 20th century.

[-wulf-]

6. where do you live?

In my area we didn't have cable service from one of three providers, so everyone in the neighborhood that was interested signed a paper and presented it to the company, and they've been running the new cables for a year now.

You should look into something like that. You'll get it done a lot faster yourselves that if you wait on the government to drop down and lay some cable for you.

There's always satellite though. Sure the upload sucks, but the download works.

Either way, you obviously have access to the internet, so it can't be all that bad.

[laughingliberal]

7. A rural area of Nevada

There is no cable TV, satellite only. There is no high speed internet even close. If it's left to the for profits to bring it to us, we will never have it. The population is not high enough to make it worth their while.

I had satellite internet out there and it does, indeed, suck. Also was not high speed enough for me to move to a work from home position when I was doing telehealth nursing. So, I had to keep doing the 53 mile commute every day.

I have access to the internet because we are not living in our home right now. We're so broke we can't afford to drive in from there anymore and can't afford to heat the house. I have internet right now cause we are staying with friends in the town where our shop is.

[-wulf-]

8. sounds like you need to move out of the desert

[DainBramaged]

9. Absolutely right, and I wonder who is behind jamming this up.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

4. I read that as the companies questioned a particualr application for

the service to one county in Georgia. That application, despite only serving one county, was for $13.5 million. I think the companies were questioning why it should cost $13.5M for only one county when they can do SW Ohio AND northern WV for only $12.6 million. If it's true that Time Warner can provide service to all that area for $12.6M, then it does beg the question of why would someone would apply for so much money to do a single county.