Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (D) divded her 21 recommendations into three levels: Exeptional, Outstanding, and Deserving.
I could not find the letter on a government site but obtained it through the StimuluatingBroadband blog people — Pratt Networks — here.
The only Exceptional middle mile project in the letter in the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, a roughly $34 million project, half grant and half loan, mixing fiber, microwave, and wireless. No objections to it! Looks like a good project.
There are two Outstanding middle projects. There’s little data in the federal database on the Triplet Mountain project.
But there is a reasonable amount on PacTex. It’s a fiber run across the state that would cost about $140 million and is run by ex-AT&T executives. I’d like to know more about where the fiber runs from and to and whether this fiber run is simply an investment that AT&T should have made anyway in the past — there are numerous investments that AT&T should have made but chose not to in order to better reward its CEO at the time.
There are three Exceptional last mile projects.
Smith Bagley is a roughly $10.5 millon project to serve “Navajo, Hopi, and White Mountain Apache Tribal lands as well as rural non-tribal lands.” While the coverage area is deserving, the technology is cellular (3GPP). There is, as I read it, no open network commitment.
TowerStream I filed applications across the U.S. and it’s surprising that the governor recommended their application in Phoenix. Phoenix is the site of numerous failed wireless trials but it was chosen because it is an ideal location for the provision of wireless service. Much of the city is in a sort of bowl, so there are natural heights that enable the cheap placement of wireless infrastructure.
The third is WeCom for WiMAX in Kingman, AZ. There’s little data on the project and it seems fine as long as the principals are qualified.
Castillo Technologies filed 15 applications and gets two Deserving ratings in the letter. NPG Cable of St. Louis, MO, which filed 3 applications in AZ gets two Deserving ratings in the letter. I wonder whether “Deserving” ratings will be treated as recommendations or not.
Wi-VOD, which filed two applications totalling about $20 million grant / $30 million loan gets an Outstanding recommendation.
The letter’s Public Computer Center recommendations seem reasonable. The application of the state library system, for about $1.25 million to upgrade public computers in 84 libraries, seems particularly good and deserves its Exceptional rating.
In what I call the education category and what the government calls Sustainable Broadband, there are some odd decisions.
The Tohono O’odham Utility Authority gets an Exceptional rating, but the application is a small addition to a middle mile project and a last mile project neither of which are mentioned in the letter.
Three quirky projects get Deserving ratings:
Broadband for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a $140 million project to bring broadband to 66,000 households for two years that is supported by Vint Cerf.
WildBlue’s $15 million project for the state of Arizona — I don’t like satellite for the stimulus except in small and exceptional cases.
The third is a national project that’s based in Arizona, so I understand why that state’s governor would recommend it. CHC-TV LLC proposes a $35 million project to deliver education nationally. I believe it would make sense for the federal government to negotiate with CHC-TV for a pilot project at 1/50 the cost for the state of Arizona alone.