EXCERPT: “Since the George W. Bush administration, the federal government has doled out millions of dollars with the promise to expedite access to broadband service in remote parts of the country. President Donald Trump is no exception, having signed an executive order earlier this month directing the government to use ‘all viable tools’ to speed up the process to locate wireless technology on federal buildings in rural areas. Plus, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai just proposed putting a $500 million toward rural broadband. While all political persuasions agree with the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Task Force report that broadband is critical for the economic health of a large swath of the country, experts say the devil is in the details — or lack thereof. They also say Pai’s infusion of money does little more than restore funding that previously had been cut. Some U.S. senators are asking for dedicated money for broadband through an unspecified infrastructure package instead of what’s amounted to a pile of executive orders and 39 percent of rural America still without broadband service.” FULLSTORY: http://bit.ly/2E753bM
