Changes to RUS Broadband Loan Program Include Rural Gigabit Pilot - Telecompetitor: When President Obama spoke last week about reforms to the USDA Rural Utilities Service broadband loan program, he was referencing changes adopted in the 2014 Farm Bill, a USDA official advised in an email to Telecompetitor.
Joan Engebretson's
report illustrates the wide gulf between the Obama's administration's aspirations for fiber telecommunications infrastructure America needs for the 21st century and the stark paucity of available funding under current federal programs to help finance this high cost endeavor.
Casey Peck, General Manager of the Kalona Cooperative Telephone Co. of Kalona, Iowa pointed up the gap in this opinion piece appearing in the Kalona News:
It seems the President’s objective is to encourage municipal
construction of broadband networks, which would compete with existing
providers. The push to allow municipalities to construct broadband
networks, which is prohibited by state law in 19 states but not in
Iowa, will do little or nothing for the actual rural customers for
which Obama claims to be concerned.
The fact is that most companies want nothing more than to roll out the
next generation of broadband services, but simply do not have the cash
flow to do so. The biggest hurdle facing those consumers without
high-speed internet services is provider’s lack of funding to get
these services to the most remote customer in their areas.
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