Comments on: Little Love for Government on Broadband Stimulus Plan http://www.telecompetitor.com/little-love-for-government-on-broadband-stimulus-plan/ Providing insight, analysis, and commentary on the evolving telecom competitive landscape Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:46:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Bernie http://www.telecompetitor.com/little-love-for-government-on-broadband-stimulus-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-7788 Bernie Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:28:03 +0000 http://www.telecompetitor.com/?p=1664#comment-7788 Craig - I can appreciate your concerns. A lot of them make sense. I don't envy NTIA and RUS. On the one hand, they have the fiduciary responsibility to distribute taxpayer money (although, aren't we really talking about taxpayer backed loans) correctly and avoid waste and fraud. On the other, they're under tremendous pressure to get things going quickly and efficiently. Under those conditions, I guess I give them a liitle more slack. It's real easy to 'Monday morning quarterback' this process. I hope we can all find ways to offer constructive feedback, and make the stimulus program a success for all involved. Craig – I can appreciate your concerns. A lot of them make sense. I don't envy NTIA and RUS. On the one hand, they have the fiduciary responsibility to distribute taxpayer money (although, aren't we really talking about taxpayer backed loans) correctly and avoid waste and fraud. On the other, they're under tremendous pressure to get things going quickly and efficiently. Under those conditions, I guess I give them a liitle more slack.

It's real easy to 'Monday morning quarterback' this process. I hope we can all find ways to offer constructive feedback, and make the stimulus program a success for all involved.

]]> By: Craig Settles http://www.telecompetitor.com/little-love-for-government-on-broadband-stimulus-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-7787 Craig Settles Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:40:19 +0000 http://www.telecompetitor.com/?p=1664#comment-7787 Though my initial reaction was a little over the top, in large part due to the initial shock of such an unanticipated decisions, I and others don't have a problem with volunteerism or peer review by itself. If NTIA had announced three months out that they planned to go this direction, and when they announced it had a clear plan of how this was volunteer program was going to run, this wouldn't be as bog of a concern, But in about 35 days NTIA is expecting a huge number of apps to process, and from what people at the Workshop where this was announced reported, NTIA couldn't even answer some basic questions about how this program would be run, how they would ensure there's no conflict of interest, etc. There doesn't appear to be sufficient thought put into how they will manage the mechanics of a process of making the first cut from proposals many of which will involve millions of dollars per proposal. The other disturbing thing for many of us is that, were the NTIA to - like RUS will - hire people to do this task, these would be the only jobs created this year by what is a jobs creation bill. There are tech companies that had to lay off people because the stimulus in effect froze many government projects while officials wait to see if they can win a grant. At least if these laid off workers were hired to review projects, assuming non conflicts of interest was properly managed, you'd be putting some people back to work. Though my initial reaction was a little over the top, in large part due to the initial shock of such an unanticipated decisions, I and others don't have a problem with volunteerism or peer review by itself. If NTIA had announced three months out that they planned to go this direction, and when they announced it had a clear plan of how this was volunteer program was going to run, this wouldn't be as bog of a concern, But in about 35 days NTIA is expecting a huge number of apps to process, and from what people at the Workshop where this was announced reported, NTIA couldn't even answer some basic questions about how this program would be run, how they would ensure there's no conflict of interest, etc.

There doesn't appear to be sufficient thought put into how they will manage the mechanics of a process of making the first cut from proposals many of which will involve millions of dollars per proposal.

The other disturbing thing for many of us is that, were the NTIA to – like RUS will – hire people to do this task, these would be the only jobs created this year by what is a jobs creation bill. There are tech companies that had to lay off people because the stimulus in effect froze many government projects while officials wait to see if they can win a grant. At least if these laid off workers were hired to review projects, assuming non conflicts of interest was properly managed, you'd be putting some people back to work.

]]>