America shaken down by Big Tel and Cable! Over the past decade the FCC approved billions in wire

charges earmarked for promised rural broadband expansion our providers failed to deliver.

In the same timeframe tens of 1000’s of wind turbines have been erected in remote areas.

Erecting wind turbines on mountain tops is expensive and a logistical challenge for renewable energy companies.

Throughout this same timeframe billions more was given to these same providers via state and federal broadband grant

programs

We got robbed. Companies built thousands of wind farms and we can’t get our broadband providers to string cable on a few poles?

Is Broadband Expansion Synonymous with Crony Capitalism?

Billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to Broadband Providers that are spending the money on their networks, the Bell companies

used the money to, rollout wireless and the inferior DSL services. The Bells also lost over $20 billion overseas and paid executives

over a billion in stock options over the last decade

We must stop Fed and State officials who continually give our tax money to the same companies for services they fail to deliver.

Many states have started challenging Big Tel and Cable We request that the state immediately start an investigation into the

failure of Verizon to build a fiber optic network in Massachusetts with the majority of the communities completed by 2010, even though company

collected over $1 billion by 1999 - about $4 -$5 billion by 2007. It cost the state more than $110 billion over the last decade in new business

opportunity and economic growth and almost $2 billion in higher cable rates because competition failed to materialize. Without the audits we

suggest, it is impossible to know how much money the state's residential and business customers have paid for fiber optic services they never

received.

Federal Agencies funding Broadband will surprise you.

Per the NTIA itself stated, Behind the Broadband Curtain —There is an underground network of political deceit in the telecom and broadband industry. It is made up of very well funded fake or co-opted consumer groups, research firms, think-tanks, lobbying groups, politicians and PR firms throughout the United States that are out to fool reporters, state legislatures, Congress, the public and the FCC that they represent the

public interest.

The list includes the FCC, RUS, NTIA and even the USDA.

NTIA claims to understand broadband yet they were complicit in Motorolla’s mishandling of millions.

More than two-thirds of the program’s $382 million in public safety grant money went to pilot projects won by Illinois-based Motorola Solutions Inc., which holds an estimated 80 percent share of the emergency two-

way radio market. That’s ironic, because it was Motorola’s radio dominance that helped instigate the push toward a more competitive

broadband market as the best way to build the new network.

The $70 million grant to Mississippi and a controversial, $50 million grant to Motorola for the San Francisco-area project have been scuttled. A $154

million grant to Los Angeles County is in jeopardy.

While little work had been done in San Francisco, the Mississippi Wireless Communications Commission already had paid Motorola $32 million toward its statewide network. State officials have been

asked to retrieve nearly $14 million in equipment mounted on transmission towers for use elsewhere, though the state will be

allowed to keep $18 million in microwave equipment and $4 million in radios, NTIA said.

Wind Turbines in the distance on mountain tops. No fiber or CATV on poles in the foreground.

The American Recovery Act threw billions more at rural broadband expansion we never saw. How much more taxpayer dollars will it take?

The next slides are yet a few examples of how poorly this went. Government without Governance.

Just a few examples of how the American Recovery Act Broadband Grants went.

West Virginia was wwarded $126.3 million taxpayer funded broadband expansion program into an “orchestrated train wreck,” charged West Virginia Delegate Nancy Guthrie (D-Kanawha). $42 million to

Frontier in which a consultant’s report obtained by the Gazette in 2013 concluded that state officials used tens of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funds to help Frontier build a fragmented high-speed Internet

network that solely benefits Frontier. The state hired Vienna, Va.-based ICF International for the report. Project later scaled back to 675 miles but Frontier was paid the entire $42 million initially set aside for the

work. Frontier completed the project last year. PSC has since filed suit to against Frontier Where the remainder of the $126 million went is still up for debate.

.

Colorada awarded a $100.6 million grant as part of the Obama administration's broadband stimulus program. Per NTIA EAGLE-Net has already connected about 70 school districts, but most are in communities that previously had sufficient bandwidth. They now need another $37 million and I have serious doubts if that will get the broadband to rural

Colorado.

Louisiana awarded 80.5 under the U.S. Dept. of Commerce via the RUS to the state in the first round of broadband stimulus funding. Why? Because although the money was awarded in 2009, state officials including governor Bobby Jindal dithered and bickered and failed to start any meaningful construction.

.

Awarded a $60 million grant. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Idaho’s award of a school broadband contract that a judge later invalidated.

Idaho now owes ENA and CenturyLink $4.2 million, state might have to repay the federal government more than $13 million in e-rate payments.