The Onion Fools Foreign Reporters Once Again

Minnesota Governor Pushes Connected Nation Before Panel He Appointed Has Its Say

from the inside-track dept

Fri, Sep 4th 2009 2:30pm — Mike Masnick

We already pointed to the rather questionable situation in Florida where Connected Nation was "chosen" to run the broadband mapping project (and get a bunch of stimulus cash) over a competitor, despite issuing a bid that was more than twice as high, and without any local endorsements (and... oh yeah... one of the voters, the one who voted on CN by the highest margin just happened to have worked at one of the telcos that now backs CN). It looks like something fishy is going on in Minnesota too. According to Broadband reports, Minnesota's governor, Tim Pawlenty has already signed a letter supporting Connected Nation for mapping broadband in Minnesota... totally pissing off a member of the state's Ultra High Speed Task Force, who the governor (at the demands of the legislature) appointed to look into this very matter. But, why wait for them to investigate the details and choose wisely, when you can just select who you want. Again, Connected Nation has done an amazing job getting politicians to sing its praises, despite serious questions about how its mapping process works.

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Filed Under: broadband, minnesota, tim pawlenty
Companies: connected nation

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 4 Sep 2009 @ 2:48pm

"choose wisely", surely?
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Mike Masnick (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 2:59pm

Re:
Yes. Sorry. Fixed. Thanks.
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Bill, 4 Sep 2009 @ 3:26pm

Can someone explain to me..
What the controversy is about Connected Nation? I honestly would love to know... I mean, I know there's some telcos and cablecos that are part of it, but I see lots of farm bureau folks, consumer groups and others. What's the deal?
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Tek'a R (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:02pm

Re: Can someone explain to me..
Bill, too many of those "consumer groups" and farm groups, when you start poking at them, fall over and reveal that they are, in essence, subunits who take their cues directly from Connected Nation.

Think of it like a puppet master waving about marionettes who sing his praises, then citing his puppets as proof of how wonderful he is.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:15pm

Re: Can someone explain to me..
What the controversy is about Connected Nation? I honestly would love to know... I mean, I know there's some telcos and cablecos that are part of it, but I see lots of farm bureau folks, consumer groups and others. What's the deal?

This is a pretty good explanation:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Nations-Largest-ISPs-Crafting-Fake-National-Broad band-Policy-96192

Art Brodsky covers it pretty well also:

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2522
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Josh (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:26pm

Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
Interesting that the push to expand broadband (and therefore use of the internet) is highlighting how corrupt the political system pushing it in the first place is.

Perhaps a rather good unintended consequence.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:47pm

Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
Sure I will explain it .... there is no need for the mapping project...

All that is needed is for the telcos to turn over information, which they refuse to do. The information needed is

Name of company and for all Internet connections...
1) address, city, state, zip code and apartment number
2) type of connection (DSL, Calble, Phone, cell phone, etc)
3) speed of connection

Done ... at most 2 million dollars worth of work combined for all the telco's, not a couple hundred million dollars.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:54pm

Re: Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
by the way this is actually just doing an SQL query on the billing databases... not a 2 million dollar total project
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 4:59pm

Re: Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
oops sorry forgot

4) GPS location and manufacturer name and unit type for Wireless Broadband
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Thomas (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 5:01pm

They know how to offer
bribes. Whether it's cash, hookers, cocaine, or virgins, the big business shills like connected nation, will know where to find it and how to get it to the people that make the decisions. You don't really expect the Governor to be interested in what the people want do you? How much of a commission will the governor get from Connected Nation anyway? 1% 5%?
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 5:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
I really have to stop doing research after I post here ... wish there was a draft mode.
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Hephaestus (profile), 4 Sep 2009 @ 6:22pm

Re: Re: Can someone explain to me..
A simple solution to this mapping problem, since the communication companies are not being forth coming, get google and Yahoo/MS involved. Ask them to ask "US based" users to enter their street addresses.

The sales pitch for the users would be...

"Do you want to help save every american 1 dollar? There are 350 million americans counting on you."

(Click here to take the broadband mapping survey)
or
(click here your address is on file)

in either case....

Ask - enter you internet service provider

System - Log the trace route and you are done

What you would want to do is limit it to current users and allow no new email subscribers after the time the survey is common knowledge to participate. This prevents screwing with the survey.
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Thamios, 4 Sep 2009 @ 6:28pm

Makes me sad to be a Minnesotan
Yet again our Governor doesn't think about the state, just his own opinion. He doesn't get help from anyone, doesn't listen to the public, and yet he somehow manages to remain in office!

I've heard rumors he might run for President in 2012 (Probably what will actually bring the end of the world), and I've already decided that if he wins, I'm moving to Canada. If someone can't take care of their state, why give them 49 others to fail with?

Can't wait till elections so we can (hopefully) finally boot him out, but I can say, he's perfect for government. "Why wait when no one can contest my choices? *sign paper blindly*
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