Nearly $23 million meant to bring the Web to rural America instead will underwrite fast Internet service to affluent Texas suburbs, a situation Democrats and other critics called outrageous.
The loan, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDA), includes work in communities outside Houston, in House Republican Leader Tom DeLay's district.
Farm and telephone groups on Thursday questioned the wisdom of the $22.7 million loan to ETS Telephone & Subsidiaries, a Houston firm that advertises itself as providing telecommunications for "quality master-planned communities."
The loan would help bring broadband service to 9,272 households and businesses just outside the Texas city, the Agriculture Department said.
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