Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
By Winter Casey, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 10, 2009 - The two government entities charged with distributing $7.2 billion to expand broadband deployment and adoption said Tuesday they are officially seeking public feedback on how to effectively get the funds to the applicants who should be receiving them.
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service were assigned by Congress in January to administer the program but no awardees have yet to be named.
On Tuesday
RUS and NTIA said they planned to award the funding in just two rounds to increase efficiency and better accommodate applicants.
A statement from the agencies noted that the first round of the grant and loan programs produced about 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding, which is almost seven times the amount of funding available at this time.
Though NTIA originally intended to start announcing grant recipients in November, Larry Strickling, head of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said in late October that the program has been
falling behind.
Currently, the agencies do not anticipate announcing the first broadband stimulus grants until at least mid-December but will then announce more awardees on a rolling...
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Saturday, October 31st, 2009
By Rahul Gaitonde, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
October 31, 2009 - Finland made headlines earlier this month in declaring that broadband had become a legal right. While this startled some people, the Finns were not the first people to declare this – the Swiss were. Further, in 2003, at the World Summit on the Information Society, a declaration of principles was drafted and signed by a number of nations around the world, including the United States.
While Finland is the first nation to declare broadband a right, many nations around the world have developed plans to have universal service within the next 5 years. Finland’s plan is to have 100 percent coverage by 2015 at 100 Megabits per second, but the parliament has yet to officially approve the recommendation.
The United Kingdom announced through their Digital Britain plan to have 100 percent coverage by 2012 with a minimum speed of 2 Mbps. Germany has also announced full coverage by the end of 2010: 75 percent of all households are to have speeds of 50 Mbps by 2014, and then 100 Mbps for 100 percent of households by 2018. France also announced a plan to get universal coverage by 2012.
All of those plans were established...
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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 28, 2009 - Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling said Wednesday that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will work to apply the lessons from the first round as it moves on to the next phase of broadband stimulus applications.
“The NTIA and RUS are finalizing a new request for information that will help us shape the round two process,” Strickling said, testifying before the House Small Business Committee. He also said that at least 15 percent of the applications for stimulus funding came from small and disadvantaged businesses.
He added that the agency’s request for information will solicit the public’s views on how the first round worked for applicants and what changes and clarifications should be made for the second round.
Strickling touted the role that broadband plays for rural communities, and also for small businesses. “If you are a small business owner without access to high-speed internet, you are effectively operating with one hand tied behind your back,” Strickling said.
He said that application process involves giving additional points to applications from economically disadvantaged businesses, and those who have collaborated with them.
Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service at the Agriculture Department, said that 36...
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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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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
Editor's note: This story has been corrected; see below.
NEW ORLEANS, September 30, 2009 – The
number two official chief of staff at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said Wednesday that there will be changes in the rules governing the broadband stimulus program, and that the government would begin seeking comments on changes in mid-October.
Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors here, Tom Power, chief of staff at the Commerce Department’s NTIA, also said that there were many advantages of consolidating the final two rounds of the broadband stimulus program into a single, final application period.
“We are considering eliminating the third round, and going to a second round” for all applications, said Tom Power, speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors here. “We haven’t decided that yet,” he added.
“The advantage [of eliminating the final round] is that we might be able to give people a little more time after the NoFA [Notice of Funds Availability] comes out,” he said. “We would love to give more time for folks to prepare applications.”
Besides giving individual applicants more time to prepare their packages...
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Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
By the Staff of BroadbandCensus.com
The National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) and Rural Utilities Service (RUS) have embarked upon a 30-day period of accepting responses from existing service providers in their reviews of service area classifications, which will includes defining the unserved and the underserved areas for the BIP/BTOP infrastructure applications. The Public Notices can be viewed at:
http://broadbandsearch.sc.egov.usda.gov/DefaultARRA.aspx.
The Public Notices were published Monday and the response deadline is October 28. Interested parties can view responses to the Public Notices by searching the BroadbandUSA database, based on company name or project location, at:
http://broadbandsearch.sc.egov.usda.gov/LegalNoticeFiling/List.Aspx?program=ARRA.
According to the web site, existing broadband service providers who respond to Public Notices with multiple proposals will need to file separate responses for each individual service area. This is in order for their existing services to be considered when determining eligibility for funding in the BIP and BTOP Infrastructure applications. All information submitted by existing service providers will be treated as proprietary and confidential to the extent permitted under applicable...
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Friday, September 11th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 11, 2009 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration late Wednesday released the names of all 2,200 applicants for broadband stimulus grants through an interactive and searchable database at the
broadbandusa.gov web portal during the first round of the broadband stimulus applications.
In testimony to Congress on Thursday, Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary of NTIA, said that the agency was likely to seek to consolidate the planned rounds two and three of the broadband grant process into a single additional round. The broadband stimulus program is being run by the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service of the the Agriculture Department.
Also, late Wednesday the NTIA released the names of the entities within all 50 states, five territories and the District of Columbia that had been awarded broadband data and mapping grants.
Previously, there had been some question about whether all states would indeed submit applications for broadband data.
“We are pleased with the unanimous response, which underscores the value of this program,” Strickling said in a statement, speaking about the broadband data grants.
The data grants totaled $100 million, or significantly less than the $240 million that had been designated for the program by the NTIA. The...
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Thursday, August 27th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, August 27, 2009 – Nearly 2,200 applications were submitted for federal funding from the federal government’s broadband stimulus program, seeking $27.6 billion in funding, out of $4.3 billion that is available, said the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Rural Utilities Service.
“Applicants requested nearly seven times the amount of funding available, which demonstrates the substantial interest in expanding broadband across the nation," said Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator of NTIA, which is part of the Commerce Department.
"We will move quickly but carefully to fund the best projects to bring broadband and jobs to more Americans,” he said.
"The overwhelming response we received underscores the extensive interest in expanding broadband across the country,” said Jonathan Adelstein, Administrator of RUS, which is part of the Agriculture Department.
“Rural communities clearly recognize that broadband can expand their economic opportunities and create jobs," Adelstein said. “The Obama Administration’s goal is to target funds to serve areas of greatest need. The big demand for loans as well as grants demonstrates that we can leverage private investment with USDA's $2.5 billion to deliver the greatest bang for the taxpayers' buck."
Of the $4.3 billion available in this round, RUS...
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