Holy handouts! Applicants seek almost $28B in broadband bucks

The government agencies responsible for dispensing $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money said today that 2,200 entities have applied for the first tranche of $4 billion in grants. The total funding sought was just shy of $28 billion, according to a release posted on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration web site. And when the roughly $10.5 billion in matching funds committed by the applicants is taken into account as well, that figure rises to $38 billion in proposed projects.

That’s a lot of demand for rural broadband, especially when we recall that the larger vendors have shied away from asking for funds. The NTIA and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service expects to make the first cuts in this pile of applications by Sept. 15. According to the release, so far the breakdown of applications looks like this...