Suspension lifted, Eagle-Net Alliance is ready to build

Colorado’s Eagle-Net Alliance will start the second season of construction on its $134 million broadband network in early June, a month after regaining access to its federal stimulus grant that had been suspended for five months in a political firestorm.

It’s the fifth-largest of the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program projects funded by the 2009 federal stimulus program. Broomfield-based Eagle-Net won a $100.6 million federal grant to connect schools in 168 Colorado school districts to higher-capacity, lower-priced broadband service, plus offer access to hundreds of local government buildings, hospitals and other “community anchor institutions.”