Windstream announced their latest broadband stimulus funded project is now underway in South Carolina. This latest project indicates a quickening of the pace of stimulus funded broadband construction for Windstream, who was the largest winner of stimulus funds at $181.3 million. Windstream intends to invest $60 million of their own money in these programs for a total of $241 million in broadband stimulus related projects.
Considering that large amount of funding and the closing window to get broadband stimulus funded projects started and completed, it’s no wonder Windstream appears to be more active with their stimulus projects.
The South Carolina project will take place in Lexington and will bring broadband to approximately 160 customers. Windstream’s broadband stimulus take in South Carolina was $3 million and they intend to spend an additional $1 million of their own.
Windstream recently contacted Telecompetitor to clarify their broadband stimulus construction activity. We’ve opined that given the amount of stimulus funding they received, they seemed to be taking a somewhat small scale build strategy. Windstream clarified that there is much activity behind the scenes which does not necessarily get reported by the company. They announce when a stimulus project begins for any given state, but don’t provide updates of all the activity which follows that initial announcement in those states.
Regardless, the activity seems to be building momentum, with construction activity now announced in six states, including Mississippi, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, and now South Carolina.
Seems to me that since they are using federal money they should be required to be a lot more transparent about where they are in the process for each project. Recovery.gov shows some information but it does not get into the detail that I would like to see.
An idealist!
Couldn't agree more that all of the stimulus awards should have transparency.
$4 million dollars for just 160 customers = $25,000 per customer!!!!!!!
That's nuts. What the heck are they doing with taxpayer money.
You could just give each customer a new car so they could drive to Starbucks for free Wi-Fi.
CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY WASTE OF MONEY!!!!!!
Just to clarify – Windstream won a total of $3 million in grants (plus the $1 million they will kick in) for the state of South Carolina. That doesn't necessarily mean all of this funding is applied solely to the Lexington project. My assumption is there are more projects that will take place in S. Carolina, but their announcement only highlights this first one.