"Much like the water and electric programs the government established to encourage rural development, federal grants are needed to enable the deployment of broadband to high-cost, unserved areas," Qwest Vice President Steve Davis says in the release.
The news triggered a wry commentary from Karl Bode over at DSL Reports, who notes Qwest's history of trying to block smaller providers access to utility poles, opposing Seattles' fiber development projects, and missing BIP's first stimulus application round, all the while dressing itself up for a possible sale.
"It seems a little counterproductive to give Qwest taxpayer money for network builds they were unwilling to do," Bode notes. "Consider this again: we'd be giving taxpayer money to a company that spent millions of dollars fighting towns and cities from using taxpayer money to wire themselves when Qwest wouldn't."
Qwest covers most of the western US, save Nevada and California. The company's statement doesn't explain where exactly the telco plans to roll out these broadband lines, and the application isn't up on BIP's application database yet. But whatever the carrier is planning on doing, it'd better hurry up. BIP says the deadline for infrastructure project applications is this Monday, March 29, at 5 PM EDT.
Source: Arstechnica.com
