Moreno Caught Lying Again – This Time Falsely Claiming Credit For Bringing 5G Access To Cleveland
June 7, 2024
Ohio Capital Journal: “The Record, However, Tells A Different Story”
Columbus, OH – Bernie Moreno takes the credit for bringing 5G wireless infrastructure to the City of Cleveland through the 2018 Blockland conference – but new reporting found that “the record, however, tells a different story.” In reality, 5G’s rollout in Cleveland was due to years of “infrastructure investments [AT&T] was already planning,” and Moreno’s claims were little more than an attempt to “burnish his own reputation,” the latest example in a growing “string of inconsistencies” that is “dogg[ing]” Moreno’s campaign.
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Ohio Capital Journal: Bernie Moreno claims Blockland conference convinced AT&T to bring 5G to Cleveland
Nick Evans
June 7, 2024
- The record, however, tells a different story. AT&T’s earliest announcements about 5G networks come from 2016. The Blockland conference was held in 2018.
- In December of 2018, Cleveland hosted the first of two conferences aimed at promoting blockchain technology and establishing itself as a destination for blockchain companies. The idea’s biggest booster was Bernie Moreno, who is now the Republican nominee in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race.
- But three years later, the effort was dead.
- According to Moreno, though, it wasn’t a total loss. In 2019, he claimed the Blockland initiative prompted AT&T to bring 5G service to Cleveland.
- “AT&T is looking at putting 5G in Cleveland,” he told Smart Business Dealmakers Cleveland that April. “That probably wouldn’t have happened without the Blockland effort and the people who were involved.”
- In a Cuyahoga County finance and budgeting committee meeting a few months later, Moreno said, “AT&T has made the decision to roll out 5G in Cleveland — first in Ohio, and probably first fully implemented city in America, if they go on their timeline.”
- The record, however, tells a different story. One in which Blockland was less a draw for AT&T than a new platform to lobby for infrastructure improvements the company was already planning. The episode demonstrates how Moreno interacts with major corporate interests and burnishes his own reputation in the process.
- AT&T’s earliest announcements about 5G networks come from 2016.
- AT&T projected it would roll out the technology in 20 metro areas by the end of 2017.
- The following year, AT&T announced plans to introduce true 5G services in a dozen cities… The announcement projected they’d bring 5G evolution to 500 markets, Cleveland among them, by the end of the year. That’s more than six months before the first Blockland conference…
- While AT&T was rushing headlong toward 5G coverage nationally, it was also lobbying leaders in the Ohio Statehouse and in Cleveland City Hall. Those efforts began years before Blockland and were aimed at laying the groundwork for 5G around the state.
- Nevertheless, Moreno still insists Blockland played a major role in convincing AT&T to bring 5G to Cleveland.
- AT&T’s declined to comment for this story as did a person who led one of the Blockland conference’s subgroups, referred to as ‘nodes’. Grzybicki did not respond to an email requesting comment. Additionally, Moreno’s campaign recommended a person involved with the conference and AT&T, but that person didn’t respond to attempts to reach them by text and phone.
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