excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
- 18,082
- 34,201
- 2,290
Just more wasting of money by an idiotic federal government run by a bigger idiotic administration.
Just mind-boggling how they waste money.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.
As part of USDA’s “Reconnect Program,” it awarded a roughly $33 million grant to the Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the agency announced last Thursday. Fiber will be delivered to 92 households and a total of 211 people and five businesses in two Alaska native villages called Skagway and Chilkat, according to a federal grant award listing.
ATC’s fiber plan will cost around $204,000 per passing of each residence and business, according to an analysis by Fierce Telecom, a tech publication. ATC also said in a Sept. 22 statement it will invest roughly $11 million into the fiber project.
“The Klukwan-Skagway Fiber project will spur economic growth and significantly enhance quality of life in very remote, hard-to-serve locations, empowering rural Alaskans with options for remote work, distance learning, telemedicine, and more,” Mike Garrett, CEO of Alaska Power & Telephone Company, which oversees ATC, said in the statement.
...
USDA’s reconnect program allocates up to $1.1 billion in grants and loans to areas in rural America that lack “sufficient access” to broadband internet, a type of internet through service providers. The program was authorized under Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in November 2021.
Entities that can apply for the funds include corporations, Indian tribes, territories, state or local governments, and other groups.
But other internet network types can be used for about 10% of what Fiber costs, according to a 2021 report by Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, a trade group for wireless companies.
Fiber is “very expensive” and “every option is actually cheaper,” meaning the Biden administration could have spent less in taxpayer dollars giving internet to the areas in Alaska, said Joel Thayer, a tech lawyer who is president of the Digital Progress Institute, a bipartisan tech think tank advocating for “policies so federal and state efforts to close the digital divide proceed as swiftly and efficiently as possible.”
...
There are “several other options” that USDA could have chosen for a cheaper price, according to Thayer. Satellite-based solutions and wireless inter service providers (ISP) are two such options, he said.
“There’s also just AT&T and Verizon, who offer wireless services,” said Thayer. “There are plenty of options. They’re cheaper to deploy [and] just easier to use.”
dailycaller.com
Just mind-boggling how they waste money.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.
As part of USDA’s “Reconnect Program,” it awarded a roughly $33 million grant to the Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the agency announced last Thursday. Fiber will be delivered to 92 households and a total of 211 people and five businesses in two Alaska native villages called Skagway and Chilkat, according to a federal grant award listing.
ATC’s fiber plan will cost around $204,000 per passing of each residence and business, according to an analysis by Fierce Telecom, a tech publication. ATC also said in a Sept. 22 statement it will invest roughly $11 million into the fiber project.
“The Klukwan-Skagway Fiber project will spur economic growth and significantly enhance quality of life in very remote, hard-to-serve locations, empowering rural Alaskans with options for remote work, distance learning, telemedicine, and more,” Mike Garrett, CEO of Alaska Power & Telephone Company, which oversees ATC, said in the statement.
...
USDA’s reconnect program allocates up to $1.1 billion in grants and loans to areas in rural America that lack “sufficient access” to broadband internet, a type of internet through service providers. The program was authorized under Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in November 2021.
Entities that can apply for the funds include corporations, Indian tribes, territories, state or local governments, and other groups.
But other internet network types can be used for about 10% of what Fiber costs, according to a 2021 report by Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, a trade group for wireless companies.
Fiber is “very expensive” and “every option is actually cheaper,” meaning the Biden administration could have spent less in taxpayer dollars giving internet to the areas in Alaska, said Joel Thayer, a tech lawyer who is president of the Digital Progress Institute, a bipartisan tech think tank advocating for “policies so federal and state efforts to close the digital divide proceed as swiftly and efficiently as possible.”
...
There are “several other options” that USDA could have chosen for a cheaper price, according to Thayer. Satellite-based solutions and wireless inter service providers (ISP) are two such options, he said.
“There’s also just AT&T and Verizon, who offer wireless services,” said Thayer. “There are plenty of options. They’re cheaper to deploy [and] just easier to use.”
Biden Admin Spends Tens Of Millions To Deliver Fiber Internet To Only About 90 Rural Alaska Households
President Joe Biden's Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.
dailycaller.com
