EAGLE-Net may be fully active again within the next month,...
EAGLE-Net may be fully active again within the next month, NTIA told the $100.6 million broadband stimulus grantee, which the federal government partially suspended in December for route changes and problems with its environmental assessment process (CD Dec 10 p6).…
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“I believe that we remain on track to have the suspension lifted within the next thirty to forty days,” NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program Infrastructure Projects Director Laura Dodson told EAGLE-Net CEO Mike Ryan in a letter this week. The infrastructure grantee is tasked with a statewide mission to provide broadband for Colorado’s schools. Dodson visited Colorado in January and February and called all agencies “responsive and cooperative,” while underscoring NTIA’s sensitivity to the fact that “time is critical” in EAGLE-Net’s plans to finish its grant work by this fall. The suspension halted all its construction, and Colorado’s building season resumes in the next couple of months. One school district’s tech coordinator scheduled to receive EAGLE-Net service told us he fears the grantee won’t be able to provide service by the scheduled time this summer (CD Feb 27 p7). Dodson mentioned two other grantees that had been suspended and reactivated and said she looks forward to putting EAGLE-Net in that category. “I too am committed to supporting EAGLE-Net,” she said, adding she’s seen the grantee’s support among several stakeholders in Colorado. The grantee also faces ongoing accusations of overbuilding and waste, which culminated in a House hearing late last month, but has defended itself consistently, questioning the meaning of overbuilding. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s John Stephenson, director of its Communications and Technology Task Force, criticized the alleged overbuilding in a blog post earlier this week: “Rather than simply throw money at the problem, risking waste from overbuilding broadband, it makes more sense to take a closer look at the real reasons why people remain disconnected and focus instead on removing or lowering the regulatory, tax, and cost barriers to broadband deployment and adoption,” he wrote (http://bit.ly/Z2tk6R).