Ohio receives $4.6M for broadband

WDTN

Hometown Cable Company recently received a $4.6 million Recovery Act broadband award to deploy enhanced broadband service for Ohioans in Darke and Preble counties. The award was announced today by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

"I want to congratulate Hometown Cable for its successful project," Ohio Governor Ted Strickland said. "This award is in line with our work to create job opportunities in rural Ohio by expanding broadband Internet throughout Ohio. We're working to connect every region of Ohio because, like the road projects of the past, enhanced Internet access is a vital part of the infrastructure that our people and businesses need to be successful."

The award will allow Hometown Cable to deploy a countywide, wireless, wide area network with fixed and mobile broadband service throughout Darke and Preble counties. Approximately 49,160 people, 522 businesses and 206 community institutions are expected to benefit

No surprises in new broadband stimulus awards

Connected Planet

With less than three weeks remaining until they are scheduled to have completed the broadband stimulus awards process, the Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Agency yesterday announced a combined total of 53 infrastructure awards.

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COLUMN: Need shown for second stimulus, new industrial policy

Pekin Daily Times

Almost 2 million Illinoisans were expected to have traveled on Labor Day weekend — up 11 percent from 2009 — and 1.8 million of us were driving. Maybe that was because gasoline prices weren’t up as high as people feared — 11 cents per gallon higher than Labor Day 2009, according to the American Automobile Association.

When the U.S. economy’s tank is running on fumes, maybe we see less-bad news as good news: an illusion. Or delusion.

President Obama on Friday finally seemed to show some determination to push for a second stimulus. After 20 months of compromise and capitulation to the Party of No, maybe Democrats are realizing that voters are as annoyed with them being spineless as they are with Republicans being stubborn.

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Internet highway needs more lanes

Minot Daily News

America's insatiable appetite for bandwidth will have technology companies scrambling to build infrastructure in coming years, according to information provided to a legislative committee in Minot, N.D. Thursday.

SRT Communications hosted the Information Technology Committee and alerted legislators and other state officials to some of the trends in the industry.

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Public computer lab opens in 1st of 60 W.Va. fire halls

West Virginia Gazette

The Logan Fire Department on Thursday became the first of 60 fire stations across West Virginia to operate a public computer lab offering free broadband access and basic computer skills training to anyone.

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Obama announces $50 billion in additional infrastructure improvements including broadband

TeleCompetitor

The rural telecom industry is in the midst of a $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program which aims to bring broadband to unserved and underserved communities, while also creating jobs in those same communities. Among the many ‘rubs’ with the current program, some argue $7.2 billion can only put a small dent in a universal broadband goal. Some important people may be listening to that argument.

On Monday, President Obama announced his intention to devote $50 billion to additional infrastructure projects, broadband included.

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Plan for nationwide free wireless broadband finally shot down

Ars Technica

For four years the Federal Communications Commission tossed the idea around like a beach ball: a coast-to-coast free wireless service across the low end of the 2GHz "AWS-3" band. The service would pay for itself via advertisements and by selling commercial access to various portions of the license area. The company that proposed the plan, M2Z Networks, would commit to building out the project in a decade, and pay five percent of its annual revenue to the United States Treasury.

But on Wednesday M2Z informed the press that the FCC has told the company and its backers that the Commission is dropping the concept, and that is so:

"We gave careful and thorough consideration to the proposal, but ultimately determined that this was not the best policy outcome," Ruth Milkman, chief of the FCC's Wireless Bureau told us. "We remain vigilant in our efforts to facilitate the universal deployment and adoption of broadband, especially through the much-needed reform to the Universal Service Fund."

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Connecting Appalachia project consultant will speak at Cambridge meeting

Coshocton Tribune

CAMBRIDGE -- Earl F. Gohl, newly appointed Appalachian Regional Commission Federal co-chairman will be the featured speaker for the OMEGA Semi-Annual Membership Meeting.

Gohl will talk about ARC programs available to OMEGA's 10-county area, which includes Coshocton, that provide financial assistance to build stronger economies and improvements of the infrastructure needs.

A second guest speaker, Tom Reid, consultant to the Connecting Appalachia project, will addressed to the recently awarded $66 million grant expanding broadband access to 34 counties throughout southeastern and east central Ohio.

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Translations of National Broadband Plan coming on Tuesday

TheHill.com

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will release the National Broadband Plan in six languages on Tuesday at a forum in Los Angeles.

The agency's decade-long, 360-page blueprint for boosting American connectivity will now be available in Mandarin, Samoan, Tagalog, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. The English version was released in March.

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Investing in tomorrow

Ironton Tribune

Say what you will about the federal government’s stimulus program, the initiative to improve Ohio’s Internet and broadband access will open countless doors — literally and figuratively — across the state.

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$30M in stimulus money targets area broadband service

Dayton Daily News

Com Net Inc. hopes to begin construction early in 2011 on a federally funded project to extend broadband service to rural and underserved communities in 28 western Ohio counties.

The new fiber network is to be operating by July 2013, three years from when Com Net was designated to receive $30 million in federal economic stimulus funds to do the project, said Diane Kahn, a spokeswoman for the Wapakoneta-based company.

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Horizon project on agenda at development breakfast

Chillicothe Gazette

Bill McKell, Horizon Telecom CEO and Southern Ohio Economic Development Alliance vice chairman, has been added to the program of the Alliance's INsider OUTlook Breakfast Sept. 1 at the Chillicothe Country Club.

McKell will talk about the $95 million project being launched to bring high-capacity broadband service to 34 southern Ohio counties. The project, much of which will be paid for with federal stimulus funding, would connect 600 local community institutions in the 34-county area to Horizon's fiber optic line -- expanding connectivity in schools, homes, healthcare facilities and businesses.

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Broadband money not redundant, says advisor

Broadcasting and Cable

Obama Administration telecom policy advisor and NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling says his agency will meet an Oct. 1 deadline for a report on how it will team with the FCC to help find 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband, as well as for handing out the bulk of its $4.7 billion in broadband stimulus grants. (NTIA still had about $2.5 billion of its $4.7 billion to hand out at presstime.)

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Extended broadband access coming to SE Ohio

The Daily Sentinel

CHILLICOTHE — Federal funding for a new fiber optic broadband network connecting Ohio’s Appalachian counties has been awarded to Chillicothe-based Horizon Telcom.

This $66.4 million Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) stimulus grant, awarded by the National Telecommunications Infrastructure Administration (NTIA), will fund 70 percent of the $94.9 million project, with Horizon providing the remaining 30 percent.

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Broadband expansion plans move forward into 2011

Jackson County Times-Journal

Big steps were announced from the Governor’s Office, Zack Space’s office and Horizion Telecom on Wednesday to bridge the “digital divide” that has for so long left a quality broadband connection unavailable in southern Ohio.

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Grants to help widen Ohio broadband access

Columbus Dispatch

WASHINGTON - Appalachian Ohio and other areas in the state lacking access to high-speed broadband Internet access are in line for a $118 million federal building boost.

Three broadband-access projects in the state, including one in the Chillicothe area and other parts of southern and southeastern Ohio, have been awarded federal stimulus grants.

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4G Wireless Evolution - Fiber on the Poles: The Final Frontier

TMC.net

The Recovery Act NTIA winners are waiting for millions of dollars of stimulus funding. The NTIA winners receiving the largest grants will install fiber on thousands of miles of poles.

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COLUMN: Largely unknown, exceptional public servant

David Broder
Cincinnati.com

Reporters learn that there are a relative handful of the public officials with whom we deal who can be counted on to expand our understanding of events. These are the men and women who have probed deeply into the forces shaping the country - or their part of it - and often anticipate the challenges to come.

During the eight years he was governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack came onto my radar as one of those rare individuals, a man who planted useful thoughts every time I interviewed him.

COLUMN: Broadband access helps economy

People's Defender

It goes without saying that broadband-high speed Internet is changing the way Americans live their lives. It's almost hard to remember how many of us got by without it. With access to broadband, we can easily sell a car, rent an apartment, look for a job, read the news, or manage a business. Broadband can connect you to the rest of the world on your schedule, at your convenience and almost anywhere - that is unless you live in rural America.

Today too few rural Americans can take advantage of the opportunities broadband provides. Only half of rural residents can access broadband - compared to 65 percent nationwide - because too many communities in rural America don't have adequate broadband infrastructure.

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NTIA broadband stimulus funding cut by $302 million

Broadcasting and Cable

The National Telecommunications & Information Administration will have $302 million less in broadband stimulus grant money to give out by the end of next month, about 10 percent of what it still has left to hand out in the next six weeks.

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