What a waste of tax loot:
"US grant to spread Net access; $45.4m aids effort for Western Mass." by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | July 2, 2010
The federal government will pay $45.4 million to help bring high-speed Internet service to about 1 million underserved residents of Western Massachusetts.
“This is huge,’’ said state Senator Stan Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat and president pro tem of the state Senate. Rosenberg said that the new network will help revitalize the economy of his district in the western part of the state, where many consumers and businesses now have little or no access to broadband connections.
The federal grant will be awarded to the Massachusetts Technology Park Corp., an independent authority that promotes the state’s technology industry. The agency applied for the money earlier this year, and Governor Deval Patrick pledged to match it with an additional $26.2 million in funding, bringing the total budget for the project to $71.6 million.
The money will be used to lay 1,300 miles of high-speed optical fiber to form a backbone network serving 123 Western Massachusetts communities. It will connect directly to hundreds of government agencies, including schools, libraries, and police and fire departments....
That's not where I'm looking to surf, sorry.
--more--"
