Econunacy vs broadband in Maryland

[DoctorDoom]

ANNAPOLIS, -- Frustrated by a permit dispute that has put the brakes on parts of a state program to bring broadband Internet access to rural parts of Maryland, some lawmakers are seeking a bill to require the Department of the Environment to waive the fees.

But the department wants lawmakers to hold off, saying the bill would only make it harder to enforce wetlands protections in the future.

The bill is aimed at the Maryland Broadband Cooperative, a $10 million quasi-governmental initiative to lay a "spine" of fiber-optic cable in three rural regions of the state — the Eastern Shore and southern and western Maryland — where Internet service providers don't always provide high-speed Internet access.

The cooperative was set up two years ago with tax money, and it aims to lay 800 miles of fiber optic cable. The cooperative has laid cable along roads from Wallops Island, south of Salisbury, to the Choptank River in Cambridge. Last fall, work was halted because the Department of the Environment decided the cooperative needed $1-a-foot annual permits to cross wetlands such as rivers, even though the lines are going along existing roads.Md. lawmakers seek to speed rural Web access (http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080315/NEWS/80315004)

Is there ANYTHING that those dumb bastards won't impede?

[DeclinetoState]

Last fall, work was halted because the Department of the Environment decided the cooperative needed $1-a-foot annual permits to cross wetlands such as rivers, even though the lines are going along existing roads.Good grief.

[DoctorDoom]

Bureaucracy is a curse.

[BarkleUSA]

...in my day we called them swamps and the developer that could fill the most acres with topsoil and transform them into something useful (a subdivision, shopping mall or parking lot) usually received The Key to the City.

[DesertFox]

I remember them days. That was back before Lyndon Baines Johnson, may his memory forever burn in hell.

[jayson]

There are rural parts of Maryland?

[DoctorDoom]

There are rural parts of Maryland?Compared to the urban areas, yep. I live in "rural" Massachusetts, athough images of 10,000 acres of wheat fields don't apply. I also have no land-based broadband, so I pay $70/mo for HughesNet satellite service. It ain't DSL, cable or FIOS. but it's a schitteload better than 26.k kb/s dial-up.

[The_Sonarman]

$1 a foot annually.

Sounds like an eternal tax to me.

[ColonialMarine0431]

Reason #455654 I'm glad I live in the South. People in the N.E. are just as looney as Left Coasters.

[DeclinetoState]

You're in flyover country, CM.

It ain't DSL, cable or FIOS. but it's a schitteload better than 26.k kb/s dial-up.In theory, the dial-up speed was 28 k. When I had that, I had a modem that told how fast the connection really was, and it was almost always 24 k or slower. On a good day, it might get up to 26 or even 28.