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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Thursday, October 1st, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW ORLEANS, October 1, 2009 – Top officials from Connected Nation, BroadbandCensus.com and One Economy will discuss key issues in broadband data and mapping – including controversial questions about public disclosure of carrier information on broadband maps – here on Thursday.
The debate will take place at the annual conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and will feature Phillip Brown, National Policy Director of Connected Nation; Drew Clark, Executive Director of BroadbandCensus.com; and Ken Eisner, Managing Director of One Economy Ventures.
The
description for the panel reads as follows:
It has been said that you can't analyze what you can't measure. Broadband mapping has the potential to provide policy makers and citizens with information needed to develop effective strategies around broadband deployment and adoption. Mapping projects in a number of states have raised concerns about transparency, conflicts of interest, and the accuracy and usefulness of the information developed. Speakers representing a variety of interests will discuss pros and cons of the nation's mapping projects and will evaluate the Federal Government's efforts to date.
BroadbandCensus.com has long urged that broadband mapping be conducted in a public and transparent matter, and that broadband data must also serve the...
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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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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 3, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission broadband workshop on Thursday addressed “big ideas” with the “potential to substantially change the Internet,” in which a range of prominent thinkers attempted to peer into the future of connectivity.
Although there is reason why internet service speeds remains at the center of the policy discussion, “speed of broadband is not the only essential topic of expansion,” said David Clark, professor and senior research scientist at the MIT computer science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “However, it is the most obvious.”
Increasing speeds of broadband have created a domino effect on applications.
A concern brought up by Van Jacobsen, research fellow at Palo Alto Research Center, is that advancing broadband speeds do not ensure higher quality of security. That will need to be addressed as new services roll out, he said.
“Internet is a big part of our lives,” said Jacobsen. We use it for online banking, to pay bills and to check updates on our checking account. When you want to transfer funds online, are you giving your account number to the bank or to the host that is supposedly representing your bank?”
University of California at Berkley Professor of Computer Science...
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Monday, July 27th, 2009
By Ryan Womack, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., July 27, 2009 – The top official at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said Monday that that now is “a new era” for broadband data, including public data about carriers that provide high-speed internet service.
“Whatever the tradition is, this is a new era,” said Strickling, the assistant secretary of commerce, speaking at the Virginia Summit on Broadband Access at the Piedmont Virginia Community College here.
He said that he hoped and expected that carriers will allow information about the areas in which they serve to be made publicly available, as they do in Canada, he said. (Carriers on Ireland’s national broadband map also allow themselves and their service areas to be identified.)
Strickling also said that broadband incumbents that seek to challenge broadband applicants who argue that their areas are “underserved” will have to make such information public – and in the same format as the broadband data collection efforts underway nationwide.
“We need the data: I think it is a national imperative in which this data be collected,” said Strickling, responding to a question about whether carriers will in fact provide states with the information necessary to create state-level broadband maps.
“I think it is a...
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Monday, July 27th, 2009
Special Transcript for Paid Subscribers of BroadbandCensus.com
Editor’s Note: The following is an UNOFFICIAL advance transcript/summary of the NTIA’s Broadband Mapping Online Workshop. The transcription was made by Drew Clark, Editor of BroadbandCensus.com, and is being made available as a special, time-sensitive benefit to paid subscribers of BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report. We will provide a link to the official NTIA transcript when it is available. To purchase your subscription to BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report, please visit http://broadbandcensus.com/sign-up-weekly-report.
DISCLAIMER: This transcription was based upon simultaneous participation in the conference call, and NOT upon an audio recording. Therefore, it is possible that there are errors in the transcription portions of this transcript/summary. If you identify any errors, please e-mail drew@broadbandcensus.com, and they will be corrected.
WASHINGTON, July 27, 2009 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration held a
workshop,
via webinar, on Friday, July 24, from 1 p.m. ET to 2:45 p.m. The two NTIA officials on the call, Edward "Smitty" Smith, Program Director, State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, and Anne Neville, focused on the nuts and bolts of the $240 available for broadband data and mapping. And they answered dozens of questions about the program.
NTIA’s...Read More »
Monday, June 1st, 2009
From BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report
WASHINGTON, June 1, 2009 – Reading through the Federal Communications Commission’s 90-page report, “Bringing Broadband to Rural America,” it is clear that questions of broadband data loom large over the pending national broadband strategy.
The report, which Acting Chairman Michael Copps issued under his own name, came in response to the 2008 farm bill, passed May 22, 2008. As with the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which passed Congress in October, both measures point to the recognition that broadband – as a significant national priority – warrants a significant national policy.
Writes Copps: “Our efforts to bring robust and affordable broadband to rural America begin with a simple question: what is the current state of broadband in rural America? We would like to answer this question definitively, and detail where broadband facilities are deployed, their speeds, and the number of broadband subscribers throughout rural America. Regrettably, we cannot. The Commission and other federal agencies simply have not collected the comprehensive and reliable data needed to answer this question.”
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