NTIA Pulls Plug on $80M Louisiana Broadband Grant

Cites Delays, Inadequate Planning Among Reasons for Yanking Funds

By John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 10/31/2011 6:02:06 PM

The state had planned to deploy more than 900 miles of fiber-optic cable to deliver service to some of its poorest areas, via more than 80 direct connections to anchor institutions.

But after delays and inadequate plans, the NTIA said, the plug has been pulled on the funding, just a fraction of the billions of dollars in grants the agency allocated as part of the Obama administration's BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) program, itself an element of the president's stimulus package.

The agency had pledged to keep a close watch on the funds and how they were being spent.

"NTIA is vigorously overseeing broadband grant projects to ensure they are completed on time, on budget and deliver the promised benefits to the communities they serve," agency administrator Lawrence Strickling said in an e-mail statement to Multichannel News. "It is our goal to intervene early with projects that are getting off track and correct problems to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on projects that otherwise would fail."

Strickling signaled that the Louisiana Broadband Alliance was one such project.

"The Louisiana project, as originally submitted, promised great benefits to unserved and underserved areas of the state," Strickling said. "However, after the state determined it was unable to implement the original project plan and fell significantly behind schedule, it proposed major modifications to its original proposal."

Unfortunately, it did so "without adequate technical and financial details and a viable schedule for completing the project," he added. "We have worked closely with the state throughout the last several months to rescue this project but have now concluded that we have to move on. Accordingly, as a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars, NTIA terminated the grant and will return the funds to the U.S. Treasury."