Broadband stimulus applications max out federal bandwidth - Aug. 18, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wiring the nation for high-speed Internet access is an ambitious plan...so ambitious that the the government's servers slowed to a crawl last week from the influx of interest.

Such a high number of broadband companies submitted online applications right before the initial Aug. 14 deadline that the Department of Agriculture and Department of Commerce's servers were overwhelmed with the requests.

That prompted the administration to extend the application deadline for $4.7 billion of broadband stimulus grants until Aug. 20...