Oink! $1.5 million for a broadband map of Washington DC

If you wanted to improve broadband access in Washington DC, how would you go about it? In the case of the NTIA (a the bureaucratic body responsible for dispersing internet stimulus money), you order a very expensive map and build nothing.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded more than $6 million in grants to fund broadband mapping and planning projects, including $1.5 million for the District of Columbia, on Oct. 26.

The states of New York and Arkansas also received grants from NTIA.

The grants— awarded under NTIA’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program and funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act­ — are meant to increase access to broadband communications networks through better data collection and planning.

The three new awards follow four other grants, totaling more than $6.8 million, issued under the data and development program on Oct. 5. Recipients then included California, Indiana, North Carolina, and Vermont.

NTIA expects to continue grant notifications through the fall.

“NTIA will continue to provide guidance to applicants where necessary to help them improve their proposed projects, so that all states and territories can soon participate in this initiative,” said NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling.

A $1.5 million broadband map of a dense urban area? This is ridiculous. I dare say that there is not a single address in Washington DC that would not have at least some level of DSL service available if the resident wants to order it. If NTIA must have  an address by address map, how about putting a project on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to verify DSL availability via the web for a penny or two each. Just have them go to the local providers web site and key in each address.  That might take $10,000 tops. You could deploy a bunch of broadband somewhere it isn’t with the remaining $1.499 million. Or better yet, you could use that money to retire a big chunk of the ballooning debt that is taking available credit away from industry. After all it’s private industry that actually builds broadband.