Colorado Chooses to Subsidize DSL Rather than Fiber Community Broadband Bits Podcast 256
In an exciting milestone, this is podcast 100000000. Or 256 in decimal - you know, for the squares.\xa0While at the always-amazing Mountain Connect event in Colorado, I snagged an interview with Doug Seacat of Deeply Digital and Clearnetworx. They sought a grant from the Colorado Broadband Fund to deploy fiber and wireless to underserved Ridgway in western Colorado.\xa0What happened next is shocking but hardly an anomaly. Using what is often called the "Right of First Refusal," where incumbents get to prevent competition in state broadband programs, CenturyLink not only blocked Clearnetworx from getting the grant but got itself a hefty subsidy for a very modest improvement in services.Ridgway residents went from almost certainly having a choice in providers and gigabit access to\xa0seeing their taxpayer dollars used to\xa0not only make competition less likely but also effectively blocking the gig from coming to everyone in town. In this interview, we discuss the details.\xa0Read the transcript of the show here.We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please\xa0e-mail us\xa0or leave a comment below.This show is 20 minutes long and can be played on this page or\xa0via iTunes\xa0or the tool of your choice\xa0using this feed.You can download this mp3 file directly from here.\xa0Listen to\xa0other episodes here\xa0or\xa0view all episodes in our index.Thanks to Arne Huseby\xa0for the music. The song is\xa0Warm Duck Shuffle\xa0and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.