{"id":343376,"date":"2010-02-20T12:46:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T17:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/press-releases\/c-u-hopes-for-big-broadband-grant-still-alive-despite-1st-award-elsewhere"},"modified":"2010-02-20T12:46:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T17:46:01","slug":"c-u-hopes-for-big-broadband-grant-still-alive-despite-1st-award-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/343376","title":{"rendered":"C-U hopes for Big Broadband grant still alive despite 1st award elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCHAMPAIGN \u2013 Officials are still “cautiously optimistic” about the fate of their $31 million Big Broadband proposal after a federal agency announced its first Illinois award on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tGov. Pat Quinn was in Sycamore on Friday afternoon to announce that the federal government would release nearly $12 million to develop a high-speed Internet network there. Meanwhile, Champaign-Urbana officials were still wondering whether the governor would have an opportunity to make a similar trip to Champaign.<\/p>\n

\n\t“It means that we’re still going to continue working on a Round Two application for infrastructure,” said Mike Smeltzer, director of networking for Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services at the University of Illinois.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe proposal would link 137 community-oriented buildings and a percentage of low-income, “underserved” homes to a high-speed network.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when that decision will come is still a mystery.<\/p>\n

\n\t“You’ll have to ask the federal government,” said Champaign information techonologies director Fred Halenar.<\/p>\n

\n\tState and federal deadlines have come and gone, and a local broadband committee already is working on an application for the second and last round of awards before it knows the fate of its first-round application.<\/p>\n

\n\tFriday’s announcement in Sycamore followed a windfall of awards on Thursday, when Indiana and Wisconsin preceded Illinois as the Midwestern winners. <\/span>Other federal grants went to projects in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmeltzer said he “would assume they’re going to be hooking up all the small communities in DeKalb County,” whereas the local proposal focuses on connecting only Champaign-Urbana neighborhoods with a possibility for expansion in the future.<\/p>\n

\n\t“That’s good for (DeKalb County), but it doesn’t necessarily decrease our chances,” Smeltzer said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday alone committed $357 million of the available $7.2 billion to fund 10 high-speed Internet projects in eight states, according to a press release.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Illinois, there are still dozens of pending applications and plenty of uncommitted money, Smeltzer said. He added that he expects five or six Illinois proposals will receive federal funds.<\/p>\n

\n\t“I’m still hopeful and optimistic that this will turn out the way we want it to,” Smeltzer said.<\/p>\n

\n\tQuestions still loom about the practicality of the local broadband proposal, which would require local contributions of nearly $1 million from both Champaign and the UI. Urbana would be on the hook for about $555,000.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether or not the agencies \u2013 facing tight budgets themselves \u2013 can stomach the upfront contributions and the yearly maintenance costs has some Champaign City Council members worried.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe council likely will take a preliminary vote in March on whether they would be willing to accept the federal grant if it were awarded to Champaign-Urbana. They hope to pose their questions to Doug Dawson, a Maryland expert who audited the local broadband proposal, when he is present at a council meeting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAMPAIGN \u2013 Officials are still “cautiously optimistic” about the fate of their $31 million Big Broadband proposal after a federal agency announced its first Illinois award on Friday. Gov. Pat Quinn was in Sycamore on Friday afternoon to announce that the federal government would release nearly $12 million to develop a high-speed Internet network there. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}