| Not NTIA's Fault; Congress' Fault NTIA's hands were tied here. The way the BDIA was set up, each state was allowed to submit one application for the funds. So the state's that went with CN for the public-private partnership deal were guaranteed to get funding.
This is Congress' fault for structuring the legislation this way. The truth is the original Markey Data bill was good, then the Bell's lobbied to get the Senate to introduce a CN/Bell bill, and that's the one that became law. This was the lay of the land in late 2007/early 2008; The Bell's Lobby Army gave Congress explicit instructions that no telecom legislation could pass except for this p.o.s. bill.
The worst part about is is the $350 million sticker price. I know of several marketing data firms that have Census Block level broadband data, and will sell it to anyone for $30,000. And the NTIA or the FCC could have compelled the reporting of the data for no cost to taxpayers. NTIA in part recognized this by shrinking the pool of funds down to $100 million.
But yeah, a fleecing of the taxpayers thanks to the Bells; Congress, and a lazy and captured FCC unwilling to do the job right themselves. |
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