The Podium
Blog posts tagged with 'Rus'
Thursday, March 11
By Brad
Geoff Daily of App-Rising has concerns about how projects are being chosen for broadband stimulus funds:
Last night CNN aired a story during the Situation Room highlighting two participants in the first round of the broadband stimulus.
The first was Hiawatha Broadband, a terrific rural broadband deployer in southeastern Minnesota. They interviewed a host of people about how the hardscrabble rural towns Hiawatha was aiming to serve don’t have broadband at all, and as a result their public safety is in jeopardy as they have no efficient way to communicate during an emergency. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they’re a poster child for the types of communities the broadband stimulus is intended to help, their application was denied.
Then CNN went up to Bretton Woods, NH, where RUS did find a project it deemed worthy of funding, namely building fiber to 400 skiing chalets. I’d been suspicious about this program already, but CNN put an even finer point on it: only 40 of those homes actually have full-time residents.
Wednesday, January 27
By Bruce
The Rural Utilities Service has announced the latest round of broadband stimulus funds, with 11 states receiving grants this time around: Alaska, Alabama, California, Iowa, Kansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Oregon, and Virginia.
All told, 14 projects are receiving funding, totaling $310 million.
(Via Broadband Breakfast.)
Tuesday, January 19
By Brad
As the NTIA and RUS continue to sift through a mountain of broadband grant applications, they’re seeking to simplify the rules for applying in the future. Reports Wireless Week:
According to a statement by RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein, the application process has been streamlined to “make the process easier for applicants and target our resources toward ‘last-mile’ broadband connections to homes and businesses.” Both the NTIA and RUS received widespread complaints about the application process after the first round of funding when businesses became frustrated with a lack of transparency and the complexity and length of the application.
Wednesday, October 28
By Bruce
Via Broadcasting & Cable, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) and Rural Utilities Services (RUS) — the two agencies in charge of distributing grants for broadband expansion — have decided to delay announcing the winning bidders by at least a month.
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