"From New York to Illinois, Comcast... has maintained a powerful, experienced army of local lobbyists and trade groups," Politico said recently.

Revelations show the federal broadband program, BTOP, riddled with overruns, favoritism and unnecessary duplication of infrastructure.

On Wednesday, December 15, the Communications Workers of America and the Speed Matters campaign released the 2010 Report on Internet Speeds in all 50 States.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its second round of grant awards for broadband mapping programs in Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, and Missouri.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced $3.4 million in grants to improve Internet connections of public libraries in Kansas, Arkansas, New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Through the Opportunity Online program, the Foundation will partner with fourteen additional states to help libraries compete for broadband stimulus funds.

Colorado launched a website to gather public input to measure and map the penetration saturation of high-speed Internet throughout the state. The state government and the non-profit organization and Speed Matters partner, Connected Nation, collaborated to develop the website - www.connectcolorado.org.

Thanks to not one, but two grants from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the Colorado Telehealth Network will become a reality.

Speed Matters has released our second

Last month, the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law at University of Colorado hosted a conference on the future of communications policy in the United States. The highlight of the event was FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein's presentation, in which he called on the federal government to make universal high speed Internet service a national priority.

Thanks to our 80,000 Speed Testers, the Speed Matters Campaign has been making waves around the country. On Monday we released a state-by-state report and interactive map on U.S. internet speeds based on the test results.