WASHINGTON-The U.S. Department of Agriculture needs to do a better job of spurring broadband deployment through the Rural Broadband Program, two senators said Thursday.
“The rural broadband program is one of the most important federal programs to boost economic development in rural communities. Despite great demand, the Rural Utilities Service has been extremely slow in getting these loans out the door and into rural areas. They risk squandering a great opportunity. So we’re glad that Secretary Ann Veneman understands the importance of broadband deployment to rural America and has made a commitment to make this program work the way Congress intended,” said Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate communications subcommittee, and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.).
RUS is a USDA agency. Both Burns and Dorgan are members of the Senate Appropriations agriculture subcommittee.
The rural broadband program had a tough time being included in the fiscal-year 2004 budget. In FY 2003, RUS made $1.4 billion in loans and loan guarantees available to provide broadband service in rural communities with populations of less than 20,000.
While the rural broadband program is technology neutral, some wireless carriers have complained that RUS rules restrict its availability to incumbents because RUS will not provide competing loans in the same service area.
Despite the $2.2 billion approved by Congress and $1 billion in loan requests by more than 60 applicants, RUS has approved less than 13 loans, totaling $132 million, said Burns and Dorgan. The loan process is “daunting with unrealistic financial requirements for the borrowers and applications that often total more than 1,000 pages.”
Notwithstanding this negative outlook, the Rural Broadband Coalition Thursday heralded the RUS announcement of the opening of the process for the Rural Broadband Program for fiscal-year 2004.
“RBC members look forward to helping underserved communities realize the benefits of their collective efforts by using these needed funds to deploy broadband,” aid RBC President Scott Lindsay.
