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ACE Friends:
If Rural Telecom Topics are of interest to you.
Tom
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UNIVERSAL SERVICE GUIDE
The National Association of Development Organizations
has updated its earlier guide that explains federal
support systems for rural telecom.  The guide offers
some general ideas to steer local and state telecom
advocacy and includes a list of resources.  "Universal
Service, Linking Communities to Opportunities," March
1999, $25; http://www.nado.org/; (202) 624-7806.

RURAL TELECOM CONFERENCE SUMMARY
The World Bank and the National Telephone Cooperative
Association have posted the summaries of their recent,
extensive conference on rural telecom.  The summaries
are fairly general, as is often the case in panel
presentations with participants drawn from around the
world.  But the panels do address interesting topics
such as bringing Internet access to jungle and desert
areas in developing nations.  Of great value is just
having the list of the presenters and participating
organizations.  On-line at http://www.ntca.org/.

RURAL INTERNET MERGERS UNDERWAY
A former Wall Street investment banker has begun an
aggressive campaign to purchase rural Internet
providers. OneMain, named after a "Main Street" model,
suddenly emerged in the news in the past two weeks for
purchasing seventeen small town Internet services and
raising almost $200 million in its first stock offering.
The company intends to unify the local services and
offer advertising suited to a rural audience whom they
feel will be more likely to purchase products on-line
than urban users.  http://www.onemain.com/.
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Tom Tate
Economics and Community Systems
Room 3901 South Bldg.,U.S.D.A
Washington, DC 20250-0900
[log in to unmask]
202-720-2727
www.sba.gov/ace
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