Uncle Sam has set aside $350 million in taxpayer dollars to help map broadband availability in the country, given we've never comprehensively tried to do so (though we've been good at pretending we have). The National Telecommunications & Information Administration today awarded fifteen more grants for broadband mapping and planning. Unlike previous grant announcements, this time the NTIA did award significant funds to controversial mapping agency Connected Nation, which has been under fire from consumer advocates for being a lobbying and policy vehicle for the baby bells.

Consumer advocate Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge has specifically spent the last few years examining the organization, which got its start in Tennessee as the brain child of former BellSouth executives. Brodsky has extensively documented how the organization, with a board of directors that reads like a who's who of incumbent ISP lobbyists, is actually designed to gloss over broadband coverage shortcomings, beat back smaller mapping operations, and prevent independent inspection of mapping data -- all while lobbying government for the nation's telcos.

The cable industry has voiced concern about Connected Nation's close ties to the baby bells. Even the Wall Street Journal started asking questions about the group last June, questioning the group's ties to AT&T and Verizon -- and specifically its claims that they managed to bring almost 100% broadband availability to Kentucky (something Kentucky locals in our forums laugh at).

Apparently nobody at the NTIA was paying attention to this controversy, or they chose to simply ignore it. Connected Nation scored $1.8 million for mapping and planning in Tennessee, $1.7 million in North Carolina, $1.4 million in Nevada, $1.8 million in Michigan, and $1.7 million in Minnesota. If you recall, Connected Nation was fighting against the University Of Minnesota for the mapping money in Minnesota, but managed to get an inside political track that bypassed any real competition or input from taxpayers. A former BellSouth executive turned funding Judge also gave them the inside track in Florida.

In short, the government just used your taxpayer money to fund an organization that smaller ISPs, who've had run ins with it in places like Kentucky, call "a sales force and front group for AT&T paid for by the telecommunications industry." Given the recent underwhelming first glimpse at the FCC's national broadband plan, the NTIA's decision to wimp out on getting carrier penetration data, and now their decision to heavily fund Connected Nation -- it's increasingly looking like the more things change, the more they stay the same.