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For the record: Montana
Thursday, 02 September 2010 18:53
A regulator reached out to me about the Opticom build in Montana. I believe that when I say something that affects policy I should disclose that. Here's my response.
"MTOpticom is more likely to have taken advantage of a loophole than broken the law, but I don't know since I can't get the documents. Apparently, Adelstein (who is a good guy and been friendly to me) left open the possibility that if there are a handful of unserved farms and mountains near a well served town the whole project could qualify for a heck of a lot of public money.

My belief is this is too much public money to upgrade the towns from 10-50 meg cable to 200 meg fiber. Fiber is better, but my opinion is the difference doesn't justify spending that much public money.

People I respect believe everyone should get fiber at any plausible cost. It's an honest debate and you should make your own decision.
I can introduce you to technical experts in both fiber and cable if you want more depth, but I think it's pretty clear. Cable is very good, with sharing only a very minor issue that doesn't matter 95-99% of the time. Fiber is better but more expensive.
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In addition, there are numerous issues I raised about the company and the costs they propose that steered my opinion. I have a few more details I couldn't confirm in the 12 hours I spent on the story, but I think enough is there for you to make up your mind, especially with local reporters on the case.
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What apparently happened in D.C. is that they wrote rules that if half of the area is poorly served, even if 98% of the people live in a well served area, that area qualified for money, even in very high amounts. In other words, if a couple of well-served towns were close to a handful of farms and virtually unpopulated mountains, RUS could virtually write a blank check.

This I believe was terrible policy when put into the NOFA rules. Even if the application were allowed, the review should have caught situations that were not appropriate places to spend public money. RUS and stimulus money is not an "entitlement." I believe this was one of those cases.

So I urge you to look at this closely and take appropriate action.