I think it’s a confusing landscape to navigate and small operators sort of give up because:
1. We can’t afford to dedicate an employee to checking all the boxes and doing all the steps year round to MAYBE get funded. 2. Regulations favor larger carriers with more wherewithal, which is the same group that’s caused a lot of the problems to begin with. 3. Banks don’t like small carriers, audited books or otherwise. Maybe Live Oak is the exception? They say they are, who knows? The danger, or course, is that you get snuffed out by someone with "free money", and otherwise no intention of serving the customers in your service area - the big carriers who caused the problem now get paid to put us out of business, when we were the most likely to serve high-cost underserved areas. Meanwhile they starve us for spectrum needed to make it happen. If any of you suddenly got your wish and ran the funding machine, what would be the most effective way to fund the stated broadband goals? -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
