Broadband stimulus in Vermont | Sipy

Grants.gov kept crashing on August 14, the deadline for submitting applications for broadband stimulus funding; not to worry, the feds extended the deadline by six days – and even then had to allow submission of attachments to the application on CD by mail since their systems weren’t yet stable by the new deadline.

Nevertheless Vermont organizations managed to file a set of applications which, if funded in the entirety, will leave less than 10,000 homes out of 242,000 without access to broadband AND will give us a very good start on attacking other obstacles to broadband use like lack of computers, training or money. The goal of SmartVermont, our overall plan for discretionary stimulus money, is not just universal broadband availability; it’s universal adoption so that applications like e-health, e-education, and e-energy (smart grid) can depend on broadband connections in every Vermont building on the electrical grid...