ABSTRACT
In 1995, as part of a settlement of a regulatory case before the New York State Public Service Commission, a major telephone company (hereafter provider) committed $50 million to deploy broadband services in the state’s poor and underserved areas.1 A program was set up to solicit proposals for broadband services from consortia of eligible organizations – which referred to public institutions (e.g. city and county government agencies,K-12 schools, healthcare agencies), small non-profits (hereafter community-based organizations, or CBOs), and small businesses. Organizations had to be located in or provide services to approved postal codes to be eligible for the subsidies sanctioned under the program. State and federal government agencies were not eligible to participate,neither were individual residents or households.Two rounds of grants were awarded before the program concluded in 2000. In all, 22 projects were funded – 14 urban/suburban, six rural, with two qualifying as urban/suburban/ rural combination projects.
