Moguls Offer to Lead U.S. Out of Broadband Wilderness

Denver Business Journal reports: Colorado businesses and organizations are seeking $1.3 billion from the federal government’s broadband stimulus program, including $530 million for a joint satellite broadband project proposed by offshoots of Charlie Ergen’s and John Malone’s competing media empires.

The government made public Wednesday a database summarizing proposals submitted for the $7.2 billion program meant to extend broadband Internet services to parts of America that lack it.

The Colorado proposals seek loans and grants for at least 45 projects either based from Colorado or intending to connect residents and institutions in the state to high-speed Internet.

The largest application came from EchoBlueRural Broadband LLC, a joint venture linking rural satellite broadband provider WildBlue Communications and Ergen’s satellite technology company EchoStar Corp.— sister company to satellite TV broadcaster Dish Network Corp.

Malone’s Liberty Media Corp., (NASDAQ: LCAPA) owns a controlling interest in WildBlue, and it also controls DirecTV, the nation’s largest satellite TV company and the main competition to Ergen’s Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH).

EchoBlueRural applied for $130 million in grants and $400 million in low-interest loans to pay for nationwide satellite broadband access at 10 megabits per second—the top speed for satellite broadband offered today and one that WildBlue has long sought to achieve.

“EchoBlue’s project is the most cost-effective way to deliver 10 Mbps service to over 1.5 million consumers within the contiguous 48 states,” its application summary said.

Separately, EchoStar Broadband LLC applied by itself for $100 million—half loans and half grants—to turn on unused transponders on EchoStar Corp. satellites and beam broadband access to 426,104 unserved or underserved households around the country. It’s not clear how much, if at all, that proposal involves WildBlue.

Another $28.3 million application by an EchoStar (NASDAQ: SATS) subsidiary proposed to educate U.S. consumers about the equipment they will need to have broadband in their homes.

Similarly, WildBlue seeks $15.5 million in a separate application with partner OneEconomy to cover teaching potential low-income broadband users in rural Colorado and Wyoming about the benefits of satellite broadband.

Other major local applications include:

• A grant for $21.3 million to Live Wire Networks to create broadband infrastructure in the foothills west of Denver.

• A $286 million loan for nationwide satellite broadband by Sedalia-based AtContact Communications.

• An $86.9 million loan to Greenwood Village-based Open Range Communications to broaden the WiMax wireless broadband services it is rolling out in coming months. The money would be in addition a $267 million government loan made outside the stimulus program that was also meant to encourage rural broadband access.

• $25 million in grants sought by Louisville-based Zayo Bandwidth to build the network infrastructure connecting a group of Indiana community colleges applied for to the national broadband networks.

• And, as previously reported, a consortium of Colorado public schools called the Centennial Board of Cooperative Education Services proposed a $178.5 million project connecting 216 school and library sites around the state using broadband stimulus grant money.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration are overseeing distribution of $4 billion worth of grant and loans in the first round of broadband stimulus funding.

Applicants had until August 24 to apply. Broadband stimulus awards are expected to be announced in November. Winning projects will start receiving money by the end of the year.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made a total of $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money made available. The agencies will issue the remaining funds in future rounds.

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Greg Avery writes for the Denver Business Journal