Melding industry with the State

Qwest is going for a healthy chunk of Obama stimulus funds. The large Rocky Mountain West firm is wanting the federal government assistance to extend its service into rural areas of Colorado.

The details from The Denver Business Journal bizjournals.com "Qwest seeks $350M from stimulus for rural broadband" March 25:

Qwest now will ask for the stimulus funds to cover 75 percent of the cost of a planned $467 million project to extend broadband service with download speeds of 12 to 40 megabits per second (Mbps) to more than half a million homes, schools, businesses and hospitals in rural communities in Qwest's 14-state service territory. Qwest would cover the remaining $117 million itself.

The stimulus funds would come from the "Broadband Initiatives Program" administered by the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The $7.2 billion program's goal is to promote efforts to expand access to tens of millions of people who lack broadband and who live within 60 miles of a city or town.

Originally, Qwest would have been eligible to have only half of its broadband infrastructure expansion project funded. Now, in the second round of funding, stimulus funding would cover up to 75 percent of the project if Qwest's application is OK'd.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado issued a statement on their blog:

There is no reason that tax payers should be forced to subsidize rural internet services. It is nice for farmers and other rural dwellers, but it is not really fair that they should pay less than the cost of service to them at the expense of the taxpayer. If they want this service than the only fair and right thing for them to do is either pay a premium and make it worthwhile for providers like Qwest to provide service in their area or to create a community co-op type of arrangement to get service by pooling resources with other rural people living nearby. the answer is not to turn to welfare to subsidize relatively well off people, and relatively rich corporations like Qwest.

Qwest is one of the largest employers in Colorado. They also do business in Montana, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.