Massachusetts blesses 3 stimulus projects, none private

The Massachusetts governor's office has endorsed three recipients to receive federal broadband stimulus funds. Though some of those efforts involve private partners, none of the three applications were filed by private companies. As part of the federal program, state governments make recommendations on favored stimulus applications. The Massachusetts governor picked proposals from the city of Boston to serve 117,000 homes there, one for a 581-mile fiber ring in Western Massachusetts planned by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (a unit of the MA Technology Collaborative that the governor created last year), and one for an open community fiber network in Cape Cod called OpenCape, formed by a group of local stakeholders that lobbied for the governor's support. Though none of those three applications were made by private companies, the private sector would participate to some degree. For example, RCN Metro Optical Networks is the primary partner in building and running OpenCape's network. And Richmond Networx (a subsidiary of Cornerstone Telephone) is seeking nearly $3.7 million to build a network management center for the Western MA fiber ring the state is proposing.