The StimulatingBroadband blog once again does a great job of finding the story behind the governor’s letter. It involves a committee chosen by governor Bob Riley (R).
The governor claims to have chosen 41 of 130 applications covering the state, but most of those filed from within the state were recommended. In addition, application from Utopian Wireless of Bethesda, MD, a company that filed 40 WiMAX applications nationwide, were recommended, as were middle mile fiber applications of St. Petersburg, FL-based Tower Cloud, Inc.
Several large requests are not on the list. East Alabama Medical Services wanted about $5 million grant / $5 million in loans to help connect about 500 ambulances to the internet using Panasonic Toughbooks. Trillion Corporation had an interesting plan for education in Southern black belt cities that is not on the list.
I think that the federal government will not be able to approve all of the state’s recommended programs.