The Rural Utilities Service celebrated the 60th anniversary of its’ telecommunications loan and grand program on Wednesday. In a press release, Wireless Communications Association International president Fred Campbell congratulated RUS on the milestone: “The funding made available through the telecommunications loan and grant programs administered by the RUS has been critical to ensuring that rural consumers have access to essential communications services like wireless broadband.”

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2009 – Members of Congress on Thursday questioned the efficacy of the grant criteria set out last week by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Rural Utilities Service. During a hearing before the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Biotechnology, Specialty Crops, and Foreign Agriculture, representatives expressed skepticism over ill-defined criteria in the the joint Notice of Funds Availability the agencies released last week.

ARLINGTON, Va., June 19, 2009 – The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program is a “jump start” for President Obama’s broadband vision for communities to use information technology to expand and enrich their infrastructure to help revive a slowing economy, said Mark Seifert, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Seifert delivered the morning keynote on the second day of Pike and Fischer’s Broadband Policy Summit.

ARLINGTON, Va., June 18, 2009 – House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., has no plans to influence the Federal Communications Commission’s development of a national broadband plan. But speaking Thursday morning at the Pike and Fischer Broadband Policy Summit here, he made clear his experience representing a rural district informs his ideas on how the FCC should assist the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Rural Utilities Service in defining unserved and underserved markets.

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2009 – Rick C. Wade, a senior advisor in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama and currently the acting chief of staff for the Commerce Department, will be one of three featured speakers at the broadband stimulus public meeting next Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, February 12, 2009 – House Republicans and conservative watchdog groups met at the National Press Club Thursday morning to air their grievances about the economic stimulus bill that they predicted would be wasteful and ineffective at jump-starting an economic recovery.

WASHINGTON, January 16, 2009 – The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday released draft legislation providing an additional $6 billion to expand broadband access, both in rural areas and in areas that are generally “underserved” by broadband providers.

Regulatory Filing WASHINGTON, July 18 – Because the importance of conducting a national Broadband Census that includes consumer-focused information about broadband competition, broadband speeds and broadband prices, BroadbandCensus.com this week urged the Federal Communications Commission to disclose broadband information with the public.