You may have heard of "Connect Kentucky," a plan developed to bring broadband services to rural areas of Kentucky that's being revamped as a national broadband cure-all under the name Connected Nation. It has the support of a number of key politicians (including President Bush and Hillary Clinton) and major incumbents like Verizon, whose policy men insist that the plan revitalized Kentucky and would do the same nationally.

Art Brodsky over at Public Knowledge paints a very different picture of the plan, noting that the Connect model was cooked up by aides to former Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher and representatives from BellSouth. Why are the phone companies so excited about the Connect model? Brodsky claims, and we've seen this claim supported by local ISP employees in the region, that the plan is little more than a political ploy aimed at lining incumbent pockets, pre-empting meaningful regulation, and giving incumbent operators control of broadband penetration data.Brodsky argues that this all started as a legitimate effort by local Kentucky regulators to increase broadband penetration, including effective penetration mapping. That's something major providers do not want, as it highlights their deployment shortcomings and poses the risk of new, progressive regulation. They've consistently fought groups in court to avoid revealing this data.

In 2004 Brodsky alludes that the project was hijacked by BellSouth, who transformed the effort into a closed-door club tasked with protecting the interests of the nation's larger incumbents (and making sure they get deployment grant money instead of smaller operators). In other words, what's being praised by politicians and the major phone providers as a plan to improve broadband penetration, is actually now a lobbying consortium tasked with presenting the illusion that broadband penetration is doing well - on the taxpayer dime.