My Turn: A critical look at the state's broadband policy | Burlington Free Press | burlingtonfreepress.com: What is happening now and why is that a problem? Much federal money has been coming into the state in support of broadband and the state has allocated some of its own. Some of the federal money is going into fiber optic networks to be built by Waitsfield/Champlain Valley and by VTel in its home territory.
But most of the money supports two technologies: DSL and fixed wireless. The problem with this is that neither of these technologies can deliver the broadband service that will soon be required.
Vermonter Henry Swayze couldn't be more correct in his criticism that federal telecom subsidies should not be directed toward stopgap technologies that can't offer adequate reach, throughput and future network demand capacity. It's an inefficient, wasteful use of public money. It would be like subsidizing a high speed transcontinental railroad system that's a patchwork of metro streetcar systems that end at the edge of towns, forcing people to walk to the next town to continue their journey.
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