Broadband stimulus update: Over $21 billion in grant requests; 67% of applications are grant only « Endeavour Partners

Our post last week on applications for broadband stimulus funds received a lot of attention. While some people disagreed with our conclusions, most found our analysis surprising and interesting: Roughly 4x the total program funding applied for in the first round, and much of this associated with only a handful of applications. The distribution of dollars among states was also uneven, and probably not allocated in the way you would do it to maximize the impact while minimizing the cost.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak with Robert Anderson, CEO of WindTalk, which sits at #7 in our ranking of top applications by size of funding request. Mr. Anderson pointed me in the direction of an interesting new piece of analysis. Many of the other large applications, he pointed out, are “grant only” requests while WindTalk is a pure loan application. His belief is that loan applications will receive favorable treatment in the awards process...