St. Louis Broadband has been
serving unserved businesses, via fixed wireless, in the St.
Louis area with broadband services for the past seven years.
St. Louis Broadband is one of the oldest Wireless Internet
Service Providers (WISP) in the St. Louis area.
ShowMe Broadband is a project
of St. Louis Broadband.
In February of 2009 President
Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009. The ARRA set aside $7.2 billion in funds to
create broadband stimulus projects throughout America.
These funds were to be
administered by the Department of Commerce, National
Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) and the
United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Utilities Service
(RUS)
The ShowMe Broadband Project
applied for broadband stimulus funds for Round 1 of the
broadband stimulus project.
Our application for Round
1 broadband stimulus funds has been turned down by RUS due to our
understanding of the
definition of "Last Mile Remote".
Our esteem, Madam Senator from the
great state of Missouri; Claire McCaskill, concurred in a recent
Congressional Testimony, when she asked what is 'remote'?
Even though two of our counties
met the definition of 50 miles from a population of 20k, the
rest of the counties did not. We did that 'assume' thing
and thought the definition qualified us to file
'Last Mile Remote', we thought it was logical...guess not.
I am
please to state that this definition has now been removed from
the requirements for definition of future applications.
We believe changes that
have occurred for Round 2 could be partially because of our voice for SEMO,
when asked by the NTIA/RUS for suggestions to streamline
Round 2, we responded and they
listened:
LINK
RUS stated in our notice of 'rejection':
"We strongly encourage your
participation in the second round."
We are now wiping down the white board;
and preparing for Round 2 of the broadband stimulus grant/loan
process.
We now know, with our continued community
support, we can build a better local
project/partnership/network.
I say, "Show Me the
Broadband!"
Check back often for broadband
stimulus updates!
We are working for
you!
Victoria Proffer - President
St. Louis Broadband, A Missouri
LLC
and a proud member of
St. Louis Broadband, LLC is a SBA certified Woman Owned Small
Business (WOSB). |
