Archive for November, 2009

Connecticut’s Governor Recommends All Six Applicants

Friday, November 13th, 2009

In contrast to other governors, Jodi Rell (R) of Connecticut managed to recommend all six applications for her state without seeming unreasonable.

Applicants were: City of Manchester, City of New Haven, Hartford, West Hartford, and East Hartford. Hartford, CT is the capital of the state and may have had undue influence, but all applications seem reasonable.

The sixth application is from AlphaStar and uses satellite technology. I think that it is not as good as the other five. It is a large project, partially redacted, so the public cannot judge it but based on the information submitted, I think the government should ask for a partial rollout of it in order to prove it works.

The governor of Connecticut also supported a number of large nationwide projects. I think that for some of these projects, the government should request a pilot project in order to prove they work before funding the entire grant request.

Fines Do Nothing To Telcos

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Today, the state of Florida endorsed years of bad service by fining Verizon a mere $2 per customer for slow repairs on the Gulf Coast, according to DSL Reports.

Time and time again, regulators have implicitly endorsed poor service by refusing to fine telcos at a level that would provide a disincentive for harm to consumers. Verizon got away with this activity for years and is paying less than a month’s profit per customer.

Isenberg Joins FCC

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Congratulations David Isenberg — and congratulations FCC for making an excellent choice!

Here’s his blog post on the matter:

http://isen.com/blog/2009/11/i-joined-fcc-national-broadband-plan.html

More here from the FCC’s broadband blog.

California Recommends All Applications

Friday, November 6th, 2009

While Alaska’s governor chose (letter available here but I could not find it on California government websites) to recommend no applications, California governor Schwarzenegger (R) chose to recommend most of them, including many multistate projects based in California.

The most egregious might be Wi-Zee’s, which will “educate” consumers by delivering the company’s CPE to them, but the application was mostly redacted, a shocking violation of transparency.

I think Schwarzenegger did his state no favors by recommending such a large number of applications.

Colorado Recommends Some Expensive Projects

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

States have to make some tough decisions. The top recommended project on the Colorado governor’s list (h/t Baller Herbst Law Firm’s stimulus resources), the Colorado Community Anchor Broadband Consortium (CCABC) asks for $175 million in grants and also $175 million in loans. That’s a lot, even if it connects every educational institution and public library in the state.

It will be a tough decision for the federal government, which may not have $350 million for Colorado and may have to fund only part of the project.

The next project on the list, Brainstorm Internet, was one of the best-written applications I saw. It uses DragonWave for backhaul and Redline’s WiMAX equipment and promises to reach a large number of businesses and residences, relative to cost. It looks like a very solid project, exactly what the stimulus was designed for, and asks for only about $6 million, half grant and half loans.

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