What’s going on with Wireless Washtenaw?

Well, after the successes of an unbelievably fast “pilot build” in downtown Ann Arbor, Saline and Manchester, a completed pilot test with over 400 participants and now the ability for people to self register for a free or paid service wherever the signal is available, the program appears to many residents to have stalled.

In fact, 20/20 Communications and Washtenaw County government are fully committed to making Wireless Washtenaw a huge success.

So why have there been no additional building?

It's all about funding. All of us at 20/20 Communications associated with Wireless Washtenaw are concentrating on obtaining the $26M necessary to build the network.

We are investigating several funding avenues including: Venture Capital, Business Loans, Equity funding, and Government Loans.

As for government loans, the USDA branch of the federal government offers low cost high dollar long term loans specifically for the development of Broadband Internet for underserved rural areas. Yes, the same department that grades our beef has all sorts of programs for the betterment of rural areas.

As you can imagine, the paper work involved for a government loan application is a bit more onerous than a home mortgage. We have been working with an USDA Representative for the past month and a half to complete and submit the application

One of the stipulations of the USDA application is a survey within the last six months of the residents in the areas we intend to cover. The survey must ask questions about available broadband internet in the area, whether or not residents would use it and how much a resident is willing to pay for it.

We were hoping the extensive survey the county did in 2005 would suffice. Our USDA rep agreed it would help as a supporting document but a more recent survey is required.

So, once again we need your assistance and cooperation. We’ve created a new online survey to satisfy the USDA requirement. I am asking all of you to please select the link below and complete the survey as soon as you get this update. This is one of the last items to complete before sending in our application to get the wheels of government in motion and the funding necessary to begin building the Wireless Washtenaw Network.

Survey Link http://www.2020ww.com