<i>The group's attorney, Philip Macres of Klein Law Group, told Ars today that he is "not at liberty to provide the list of all the members in the Coalition of RDOF Winners."</i><p>You want to lobby the government for a sweetheart deal because you failed at risk management, but you also want to keep all your reputational capital? How about NO. The ethical deficit in many business entities is contemptible.
That's what they're economically motivated to do, and it will work. The main job of your insurance companies is to find a way to refuse your claim, and the main job of the recipients of government grants is to reduce deliverables and compliance monitoring.<p>-----<p>> Telecom industry consultant Doug Dawson wrote a blog post calling the RDOF process "badly flawed since the beginning. Some auction winners bid down prices a lot lower than expected. The areas that were available in many places are scattered and don't create a reasonable footprint for building a broadband solution."<p>> "I have no doubt that many RDOF winners are now looking at a broken financial model for fulfilling their promise. They are stuck with a terrible dilemma—build the promised networks and have a losing business or pay a substantial penalty to withdraw from RDOF," Dawson wrote.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner's_curse" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner's_curse</a>
<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...</a><p>The Book Of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal And Free The Net<p>By the end of 2014, America will have been charged about $400 billion by the local phone incumbents, Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, for a fiber optic future that never showed up.
Someone should just lobby the FCC under the group "coalition of RDOF success" and say they don't need anything and that the FCC should penalize any winner who doesn't deliver 2x the amount of their award.<p>No need to disclose who is part of the group, it could be anyone or no one just like this group.
Governments should give broadband money only for one thing….. proof of a high speed connection in a premises.<p>Outcome. Money for the outcome only.<p>Should never give a dime for anything else.
> A group of Internet service providers that won government grants are asking the Federal Communication Commission for more money <i>or an "amnesty window" in which they could give up grants without penalty.</i><p>This would still probably result in a large loss to the government due to administrative and opportunity costs, but honestly I think this would be the best outcome at this point.