<div dir="ltr"><div>I assume this group knows all about this, but just in case:<br></div><strong></strong><div><div><div><div><strong><br><br>"Wired to fail:
</strong> How a little known agency mishandled several billion dollars
of stimulus money trying to expand broadband coverage to rural
communities," by Tony Romm: "A <span class="il">POLITICO</span>
investigation has found that roughly half of the nearly 300 projects
that [the Rural Utilities Service] approved as part of the 2009 Recovery
Act have not yet drawn down the full amounts they were awarded. ... If
these networks do not draw all their cash by the end of September, they
will have to forfeit what remains. In other words, they altogether may
squander as much as $277 million in still-untapped federal funds, which
can't be spent elsewhere in other neglected rural communities. ...<br><p>
<strong>"[S]cores of rural residents </strong>who should have benefited
from better Internet access ... might continue to lack access to the
sort of reliable, high-speed service that is common in America's cities.
Even RUS admits it's not going to provide better service to the 7
million residents it once touted; instead, the number in the hundreds of
thousands." <a href="http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=6899ff94fe0d350b4d966e6a6eef991e804ac2e62a5593e34907f6223d7a0b62" target="_blank">http://politi.co/1SKKGjg</a></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><br><font size="1"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms,sans-serif">Roger Snodgrass<br><font size="1">Twitter @pomotor<br><font size="1"><a href="https://twitter.com/Pomotor" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/Pomotor</a></font><br></font>home 505-424-8366<br>cell 505-920-3677</span></font><br><span style="color:rgb(153,51,0)"><font size="2">l\lllllllll/llllll<font size="2">/\</font>llllll\<font size="2">ll</font></font></span><br><br></div></div>
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