Thursday, February 25th, 2010
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, and WASHINGTON, February 25, 2010 – Connect Illinois, a non-profit organization that includes partnerships with Southern Illinois University, Man-Tra-Con, and Connected Nation, on Thursday announced Drew Clark as its new Executive Director.
On Wednesday, the group also unveiled BroadbandStat, a new interactive mapping tool for viewing and analyzing broadband data.
Clark, the founder of BroadbandCensus.com and an experienced, independent telecom industry analyst, brings a unique public interest perspective to broadband data collection, which is vital to the effective deployment of high-speed internet networks throughout the United States.
“I’m glad that our team of broadband experts is moving forward to help achieve the ambitious vision for a public, transparent map of technology infrastructure that President Obama and I share,” said Governor Pat Quinn. A long-time advocate of improving broadband access in Illinois, Governor Quinn has worked with public and private partners over many years to ensure connectivity in all areas.
As the state’s designated entity to perform broadband mapping, Connect Illinois recently received $1.8 million in funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for broadband data collection, mapping and planning activities. In 2009, led by Southern Illinois University, Connect Illinois received a start-up grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic...
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Thursday, December 31st, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, December 31, 2009 – The Commerce Department agency responsible for the mapping component of the broadband stimulus program
announced, on the last day of the year, that it had funded five more states’ broadband data programs.
With the announcement – of funding for broadband data and mapping in Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah and the U.S. Virgin Islands – the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded 41 grants totaling $78 million.
There remain 15 awards still to be made – rounding out the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories that submitted applications and are eligible for grant funding.
The agency said that it planned to make those awards early in 2010.
NTIA has been relatively parsimonious in its approach to funding broadband data-collection efforts.
Although the “Notice of Funds Availability” released on July 1, 2009, said that the agency would accept applications for funding of up to $3.9 million per state, plus $500,000 for “broadband planning activities,” in practice the NTIA has cut that amount by more than half. The average award has been $1.9 million.
Up to $350 million of the $7.2 billion allocated for broadband-related activities by the American Recovery and Reinvestment...
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Monday, December 14th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, December 14, 2009 - Broadband Census Data announced the availability of highly granular Census block mapping services to state recipients of broadband mapping grants.
BroadbandCensus.com provides the information necessary for states to meet grant obligations under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It does this by identifying:
- carriers;
- internet technologies;
- advertised speeds;
- prices; and
- the presence or absence of broadband within each Census block.
Using BroadbandCensus.com, a state can fully map the broadband footprint of its carriers within 42 days, for a fraction of the budget allocated by the Recovery Act.
And the cost is less than what a state might otherwise expect for a product of this caliber.
BroadbandCensus.com builds its broadband maps by blending multiple data sets of publicly-available information.
These sources include:
- Wireline footprints;
- Radio-frequency engineering maps;
- Publicly-available carrier data;
- Survey-grade research; and
- Crowdsourced data.
The data underlying BroadbandCensus.com is verifiable, publicly available, and granular to the Census block level.
BroadbandCensus.com can also go beyond the Census block level and offer consumer broadband data at the rooftop level. This survey-grade information is no more than six months old.
Unlike compiled consumer data built for direct marketing, the BroadbandCensus.com suite of services makes use of active household demographic data.
Working in collaboration with Brian Webster Consulting, Broadband Census Data...
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 18, 2009 - In a report to Congress, the NTIA said Wednesday that it won’t conclude doling out the first round of broadband stimulus funding until February 2010.
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration clarified in its third quarterly progress report to Congress this week that it will be dolling out the entirety of the grant money during the next ten months.
The year 2010 is going to be a busy time for the period for both the NTIA and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities is the other agency, the two government entities charged with distributing $7.2 billion of federal funding.
“NTIA will not conclude the first round of BTOP funding at the end of 2009 as originally targeted, but is on course to do so in February 2010,”
states the report (PDF).
NTIA and RUS announced this month that they will limit the remaining grant awards to one more round of funding, which they write in the report “will begin early in 2010.”
All stimulus funding for the broadband initiatives must be distributed by September 30, 2010, according to a statutory deadline set by Congress.
The broadband projects awarded grants must be substantially completed...
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Monday, November 16th, 2009
By Eli Evans, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 16, 2009 – A working group of the non-profit U.S. Broadband Coalition on Friday released a report in which the group called for the federal government to “play an active role in stimulating adoption and use of advanced broadband connections.”
The group, one of six committees of the U.S. Broadband Coalition – which had gathered more than 160 organizations to push for a national broadband strategy – presented its finding at the Federal Communications Commission, after introductory remarks by Blair Levin, director of the FCC’s national broadband plan.
The coalition’s leadership spoke very positively about the prospects of inter-industry cooperation and identifying points for possible improvement. But the group generally avoided specifics about what should be done to fix these problems. The FCC’s Levin pointed out, “Our work is about gathering data…we’re not talking about solution sets right now, we’re putting that off until December.”
The U.S. Broadband Coalition presented its report on September 24, 2009, but the Adoption and Use Working Group sought further time to collect its thoughts into an extensive 54-page report on the subject.
In addition to promoting federal involvement in broadband adoption, the group urged “federal and state support should include programs, grants,...
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 12, 2009 - While the economy is slowly turning itself around, small and disadvantaged businesses face problems gaining capital, according to panelists speaking at the Federal Communications Commission national broadband plan workshop on November 12.
Small disadvantaged businesses are businesses that are at least 51 percent owned or controlled by an individual or a group of individuals who are deemed as economically or socially disadvantaged. They are deemed disadvantaged by the Small Business Administration.
Businesses with this status struggle to gain any form of capital, and that does not give these businesses a foothold to hang on to in troubled times. However, such businesses may be eligible for grants and loans.
Within the $7.2 billion devoted to broadband stimulus funding, “Additional consideration is given for small and disadvantaged businesses,” said Maureen Lewis, director of Minority Telecommunications Development Program at the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is administering the program.
However, while small disadvantage businesses might receive a different level of consideration when it comes to the funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they don’t also get a break in the private sector.
“Funding doesn’t always have to come out of the Universal...
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Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 27, 2009 - Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation raised concerns Tuesday about getting broadband stimulus funds out to remote areas and how these areas should be defined.
The discussion took place during an oversight hearing on the process of awarding out the $7.2 billion provided to the federal government by Congress to expand broadband deployment and adoption.
The agencies responsible for administering the stimulus funds are the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. John "Jay" Rockefeller, D-W.V., both raised concerns about defining remote areas and making sure the funding is getting to the underserved areas in need. Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service at the Department of Agriculture, outlined the problem in his prepared testimony.
“[W]e have seen applicants struggle to comply with the requirements of the “remote” definition for last-mile rural remote programs,” Adelstein said.“We are contemplating major revisions that will continue to target highly-rural areas that are difficult to serve while making it easier for applicants to comply with any new definition we may establish.”
He added that they have seen “some applicants encounter...
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Sunday, October 11th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 11, 2009 – Current measures of broadband comparisons between the United States and the rest of the world – and within the country – have limitations, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office released on Friday.
Under the Broadband Data Improvement Act, passed in October 2008, GAO was asked to conduct a study about broadband metrics and standards, including comparisons of international broadband services.
These limitations including the “lack of comprehensive measures from the government to compare price, actual delivered speeds, and service reliability data from providers,” and information that was gathered through international broadband comparisons that are not comparable across countries.
Based on the information that it received, the GAO said that data collected from the Federal Communication Commission from its semiannual report constituted another setback, as information collected from providers does not include information pertaining to speeds, price, availability and service reliability.
According to the report, Form 477 used by the FCC used to gather their data does not require “broadband providers to report on price or actual delivered speeds.” This effects the comparisons used on other parts of the country, which then affects policy positions or investment decisions.
Even after the National Telecommunications...
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