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Federal covid-19 stimulus package doesn’t seem to stimulate broadband, much
By Steve Blum
Tellus Venture Associates
March 26, 2020 — Santa Cruz, CA
(Photo source: Tellus Venture Associates)
Even by Washington, D.C. standards, $2 trillion is a lot of money. By those same standards, though, $325 million isn’t much and that appears to be the extent of direct broadband assistance in the $2 trillion covid–19 “stimulus” bill approved by the U.S. senate late last night. If there’s indirect broadband help, it’s buried in the bill’s yet-to-be-published text.
According to a summary obtained by Bloomberg Law yesterday, the bill adds $100 million to a broadband infrastructure program run by the federal agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS), as well as $200 million to the Federal Communications Commission’s telehealth subsidy kitty and $25 million for a telehealth and distance learning program, also managed by RUS. That’s not the final word, of course. We’ll have to wait for the full text of the bill to surface before we know what’s in it.
Continue reading here: https://www.tellusventure.com/blog/federal-covid-19-stimulus-package-doesnt-seem-to-stimulate-broadband-much/
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Tagged Broadband, Steve Blum
