Sam Pratt at his blog named after himself revisits Mid-Hudson Cable's $3.5 million “rural broadband” grant awarded in 2010 from the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utility Services programs. Then-U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy announced the grant last year, claiming that the towns of Ashland, Jewett, Lexington, Cairo, Catskill, Windham, Coxsackie and New Baltimore in Greene County, and Austerlitz, Copake, Claverack, Ghent, Chatham, Hillsdale and Taghkanic in Columbia County would get help for rural customers seeking better Internet connections. In trying to get a local internet connection at his Taghkanic house, Pratt gets a visit from his cable guy in his account. "According to Mid-Hudson engineer David Fingar, the company has since decided not to tap into these funds—at least for the moment," Pratt writes. "Asked why (during a cordial visit to my property recently, after I'd placed multiple calls over the past three months to MHC about availability in my area), Fingar stated that there were “too many conditions attached” to the funding, but did not rule out accessing the funds later." Mid-Hudson's franchise with the city of Hudson is up for renewal this year. Read the entire post at Sam Pratt.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail writes this same story in Wednesday's paper, a day later, and does not credit Pratt.