[1st-mile-nm] Connect Kentucky Provides Uncertain Model For Federal Legislation

[Richard Lowenberg]

The following synopsis of a longer posting is forwarded from another list.
Connect Kentucky and the off-shoot consulting firm, Connected Nation, have
been getting a lot of press attention.   I and others on and off the
1st-Mile list are very concerned about and in disagreement with the
Connect Kentucky broadband model (the state subsidizing the incumbents).
This is not a strategy that the 1st-Mile initiative advocates for NM.
Art Brodsky, at Public Knowledge, lays it out very well, at length.
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CONNECT KENTUCKY PROVIDES UNCERTAIN MODEL FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]

[Commentary] The only telecommunications legislation that has a chance
of passing the Congress controlled by Democrats this year is modeled
on a group whose apparent accomplishments are open to question and
whose origins are in Republican politics in Kentucky. That group is
Connected Nation, which began life as Connect Kentucky. Some say
Connect Kentucky is nothing more than a sales force and front group
for AT&T paid for by the telecommunications industry and by state and
federal governments that has achieved far more in publicity than it
has in actual accomplishment. Connect helps to promote AT&T services,
while lobbying at the state capitol for the deregulation legislation
the telephone company wants. [Much more at the URL below -- worth the
read.]

<http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1334>