One Economy/New America Group Wins Oregon Mapping Bid

[Commentary] The state of Oregon earlier this week awarded its contract for broadband mapping under the stimulus law. The news in the announcement is that the winner was not Connected Nation. Instead, the winner was a consortium headed by One Economy, including New America Foundation, BroadMap, Navteq, and BCT Partners. It doesn't appear as if Connected Nation even bid on this one. The One Economy's $1.6 million bid won out over six other competitors. So far, the One Economy group has won in Hawaii, Guam and Samoa, in addition to Oregon. The bid will combine New America's new crowd-sourcing technology with One Economy's Digital Connectors youth corps while aiming to be more transparent than Connected Nation. The group promised a heavy emphasis on demand-side mapping, along with a live and updateable data base. Meanwhile, Kentucky is about ready to issue a Request for Proposals for stimulus-funded broadband mapping. The new RFP will not be a gift to Connect Kentucky, the original organization from which Connected Nation developed.