Senators put broadband funding bill on hold

In a second round of hearings on a bill for local funding of the US Virgin Islands' federally backed broadband project, senators voted to put it on hold until April 15 to make amendments to the legislation, according to Virgin Islands Daily News. Prior to the vote, senators heard 14 hours of testimony from the government and local telecoms and internet providers, while senator Shawn-Michael Malone submitted a written testimony. House spokesman Jean Greaux Jr labeled the decision to hold the bill a "misstep" by the senators in bringing reliable and affordable telecoms access to the territory. "The lack of action from the senate committee hearing showed that we can no longer continue to ignore the fact that at the present time, the Virgin Islands has one of the poorest and most expensive communications networks in the United States, and we cannot wait for the legislature to step up and lead on this issue," the Virgin Island Daily News reported Greaux as saying. The bill would provide the 30% local funding requirement for the US$68mn in federal broadband grants to upgrade the Virgin Islands' internet infrastructure to a fiber optic network. It would authorize the entity in charge of the project, VI Next Generation Network, to float a bond for US$42.5mn to satisfy the requirement. At the end of March, the senate sent the bill back to the economic development, technology and agriculture committee. VI Next Generation Network's CEO, Julito Francis, was supposed to file a report with the federal government on March 25 indicating the territory's commitment to putting up the matching funds. Francis told senators at the time that not doing so could risk losing the grants altogether. According to grant requirements, VI Next Generation Network must spend US$31mn of the funding by June 30 to avoid losing it. Additionally, the requirements stipulate that the project must be 67% complete by June 2012 and 100 percent complete by June 2013.