Rural Montana telecom providers escalate protests against $70M Bresnan contract

Montana’s rural telecom providers this week escalated their battle against awarding $70 million in federal funding for a new high-speed Internet network proposed by Bresnan Communications, buying full-page newspaper ads to blast the proposal.

Associations representing rural telephone cooperatives and companies in Montana paid just over $10,000 to buy the ads in the state’s seven largest daily newspapers Tuesday and Wednesday, urging citizens to call federal and congressional offices to oppose funding the Bresnan project.

“Bresnan’s request for federal broadband stimulus dollars to build a duplicate (broadband) network on top of Montana’s existing network is 100 percent waste,” the ad said.

By MIKE DENNISON of the Missoulian State Bureau

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_80cb22c0-e54c-11de-a033-001cc4c03286.html

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