At a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight hearing yesterday, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) wanted to know why the state of West Virginia bought hundreds of $22,000 enterprise-grade routers from Cisco, only to place some of them into tiny rural libraries with a couple computers. Hundreds more sit in warehouses, still awaiting installation.

The routers, each of which can serve a branch office or campus of more than 500 computers, were purchased as part of a $24 million contract paid for with federal stimulus money doled out by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The state stuck the same Cisco 3945 series router into every public facility on its list, regardless of size. Some needed routers of this size; others could have used models that cost a few hundred dollars.

"It seems pretty disturbing," Walden said.

NTIA head Larry Strickling said the whole issue was overblown. "The facts of the situation there are not exactly as described in the newspaper article," he said, in reference to the Charleston Gazette, which has been digging on the story for two weeks. The paper called the entire project a "bizarre operation."

Strickling says that NTIA looked into the situation and found that the average cost of the routers was only $12,000—not the $22,600 reported by the paper. (The contract for the devices was $24 million and 1,064 were purchased; 1,064 x $22,600 = $24 million. It's not clear how Strickling broke down the numbers.)

He explained that West Virginia actually got a good deal. "Had they tried to determine the individual router capacity," he said, "they felt that they would end up spending more money" thanks to Cisco's package discount. The gear is future-proofed, and it's also easier for techs to deal with the same router across the state.

"This was the most economical way forward," Strickling said.

Walden wasn't buying it, but his time had expired.

The topic resurfaced later in the hearing. “As much as you try, you just can’t defend what’s going on in West Virginia,” said Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), according to National Journal.