Posted on 07/10/2011 6:26:20 PM PDT by MindBender26
Enough talk from progressives and MSM about shared sacrifice and raising taxes.
The Recovery Act authorized the following five uses of these broadband funds:
$2.5 billion for RUS to extend loans, loan/grant combinations, and grants to broadband infrastructure projects, where at least 75 percent of an RUS-funded area is in a rural area that lacks sufficient access to high speed broadband service to facilitate rural economic development;
$4.7 billion to NTIA to provide grants for infrastructure and programmatic broadband initiatives throughout the United States, including unserved and underserved areas;
$200 million to NTIA for competitive grants for expanding public computer center capacity;
$250 million to NTIA for competitive grants for innovative programs to encourage sustainable adoption of broadband services;
$350 million to NTIA to fund the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program authorized by the Broadband Data Improvement Act, and to support the development and maintenance of a nationwide broadband map for use by policymakers and consumers.
MORE...
http://recovery.mt.gov/commerce/broadband/default.mcpx
and I’m starting to think that the government might as well have just cut a big ol check to every family in america. we could have spent it better. gotten out of debt, built things, bought things and jumpstarted to economy.
And you thought the Mob knew how to skim money in Las Vegas back in the day. This is SOOOO much better.
That’s fine as long as Wildblue didn’t oversell the *(@#& beam. And didn’t extend the latency on the *(#&$ gateway. And knock 25% off your *(@#&$ limit without warning and no price deduction.
I had WB for two years. They were great for the first couple of months; then they got greedy. My service tanked and since WB is marketed as a fixed wireless internet option for residences, there is no way on God’s green earth you’re going to stay under a measly 7.5GB cap a month when you have teenagers.
Satellite is not, I repeat, NOT broadband. The latency is too long, long enough to cause SSL sites to time out and make banking impossible. I could’ve put up with $70 internet bills. My speed was 1mb (on a good day) but I was OK with it. The straw that broke this camel’s back was the nuisance of having to play FAP cop.
I’m just 30 miles west of Ann Arbor and use a grandfathered Alltel (TRUE unlimited) aircard for our internet. They were fantastic...and then VZW took over. Frontier is scheduled to deploy DSL any day now — Michigan company Turnkey ran the final checks on the DSLAM last week and all is a go — but the deployment was scheduled BEFORE the Obamimation took office.
I understand we’ll never see cable, let alone FIOS. There are areas where wimax and LTE could be deployed reasonably. But some providers (:koffAT&TComcastCoxkoff:) are convinced we ruralites don’t want internet. No; we just assume it’s not available which is mostly true.
Head of Internet company that won $64M stimulus grant is big political donor
James Dolan Jr., the manager of Montana Opticom, also owns property at Big Sky, including a lot at the private Spanish Peaks housing and golf course community - which, so far, is home to the only customers served by Opticom, a small broadband firm based in Gallatin Gateway.
Dolan’s father is a former investment fund manager and founder of Ascent Data, the Pittsburgh-based parent of Montana Opticom, as well as a principal in the Spanish Peaks development. Dolan Sr. owns a home at the Yellowstone Club that is appraised at $11.5 million, according to state records.
The Dolans also are big political donors, having handed out nearly $230,000 to congressional candidates and political action committees the past 10 years, with nearly half the money dispersed the last two years. Almost all of their money has gone to Republican candidates and party groups or conservative political action committees - although Dolan Sr. did give $500 to the 2008 re-election campaign of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat.
Federal campaign records do not list any donations from the Dolans to members of Montana’s congressional delegation.
However, U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., did write a letter to federal officials in August 2009 asking that they fund Opticom’s initial application for the broadband funds.
Rehberg, who voted against the stimulus funding bill and has criticized it as wasteful spending, also wrote letters on behalf of several other telecommunications firms competing for the money, because he “supports Montana entities competing for federal funding,” said his spokesman, Jed Link.
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., also wrote a letter to federal officials supporting Opticom’s initial application, because he “wanted to support any effort to bring these broadband dollars to Montana,” said his spokeswoman, Kate Downen. He didn’t write a letter regarding the second round of applications, for which the company received the award.
******
Aug 4, 2010 – “Affordable and accessible broadband service is critical to economic growth in Montana,” said. Governor Brian Schweitzer.
“These funds will help a Montana business provide educational and economic opportunities in rural parts of our state.”
Ascent Data Subsidiary Awarded Gallatin Gateway Broadband Project In Montana
Broadband Project Will Improve Life Safety, Educational, Public Service, Business and Residential Telecommunications Services in Gallatin County, Montana
Ascent Data announced today that the Gallatin Gateway Broadband Project, a fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) infrastructure development project of Ascent Data subsidiary, Montana Opticom, has qualified for $64,127,332 of funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. When completed, the Gallatin Gateway Broadband Project will provide affordable and reliable high-speed data, voice, and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to 11,864 households and businesses, and 58 critical community facilities in communities and rural areas within Gallatin County, Montana.
There is NO way that it would cost 7,000,000 per house to get broadband to a set of houses.
Unless the average distances to the homes is over 1500 miles for each one!!!!!!!!
The contractors just pocketed that money.
They bribed the elected officials and they got their payoff.
Life will be totally unfair until we as a nation have fulfilled every American’ God-given right to broadband internet. That and high speed rail.
Ahhh. I eat a lot of pork and chicken. Bout all I can afford. Might as well spend some money on this as to give it to the deadbeats so they as can eat ribeyes.
I live in a small town in the mountains. What about my right to have an opera house and a football stadium with a major league team nearby? Don’t I deserve the same as the citified Americans?
You already do, if you own or use a landline or cell phone. Remember that Universal Service Fee? Plans are in the works to give it to ISPs to extend broadband, and a big chunk will go to subsidize the inner cities...you know, the ones who can't afford it every month. Oh computers for them, too.
Hey! if we can go that route I want the Montana $7 mil deal.
95% of em will do it again.
Ofcourse Denny’s still happy. He didn’t change his race, did he?
That is the main reason he voted for him. Like the rest of us, he did not know anything about Obama because his background is in hiding.
He's right. People in NYC have a Statue of Liberty close by. Every rural resident in American also deserves to have one within, say, a one hour drive. And a symphony. too. Those are culturally important. And a zoo. People in Washington have the option to work at the Pentagon. Rural Americans deserve this right, too. Every small town in American must have a Pentagon.
I wonder which one of The Internets they got.
Nah. I gave up on the phone thing. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even own a computer. But it stays as long as I have you. Without my computer all I would have is my bitterness, my religion, my guns...
“As a rural American I believe that I have the same rights as every other American and deserve the same opportunities.”
Either you forgot the sarcasm notation, or you are seriously on the wrong web site!
Guy who lives in the city has the opportunity to shop at a convenience store down the block: I want one a block from MY home.
Guy in the city has the opportunity to ride light rail to work: I want the light rail to come to MY block.
Guy in the city has the opportunity to go an art opening at a gallery near him every few weeks: I want a half dozen galleries built near MY home.
Ad nauseum - literally, buddy.
He didn’t forget the sarcasm tag, he just thought he would provoke some outrage. What I have not seen anyone point out in this thread yet is that any rural dweller can get HughesNet high-speed internet service at at reasonable price already. Taxpayers have been scammed by the stimulus again.
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