HoCo, Others Seek $100M For Broadband

From HoCo gov:

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced today that the One Maryland Broadband (OMB) Plan, being led by Howard County’s IT Director Ira Levy, has submitted its application to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for $100 million of federal stimulus money set-aside for fiber optic projects. The “One Maryland” group consists of all of the central Maryland counties: Baltimore, Howard, Anne Arundel, Harford, Carroll, Prince George’s, Montgomery and Frederick, plus Baltimore City and Annapolis.

“The ‘One Maryland Broadband Plan’ provides tremendous opportunities within each of our jurisdictions, as well as for the State, to strengthen public safety and emergency management, enhance education, improve health care, spur economic development, increase government efficiency and expand broadband access to millions of Maryland residents and thousands of Maryland businesses,” said Executive Ulman.

The One Maryland middle mile project will create a cohesive fiber optic network interconnecting over 800 community anchor institutions across a wide swath of the State of Maryland. The proposed network seeks to address an opportunity to unite rural, urban and suburban communities in one contiguous local government network across the State. The benefits of this interconnection are numerous and substantial, especially as they relate to sharing resources and knowledge among public schools, libraries and public safety entities. The One Maryland application included 28 letters of support and 14 letters of interest from both public and private sector partners who have been working with the OMB developing this plan.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration plans a tiered review process to evaluate the merits of the applications.