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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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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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
Public Knowledge's sixth annual "IP3 Awards" - which celebrates information policy, intellectual property, and internet protocol - drew a crowd of Washington's technorati to the Sewell-Belmont House in Washington on Thursday evening.
Among the guests dropping by the event included White House science and technology policy aide Susan Crawford, the Obama administration's designee to be intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff Jim Kohlenberger, NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn recommitted her organization to the principles of Net neutrality and to "balance" in the copyright wars. "Public Knowledge will not rest until we have an open internet," she said, and "universally accessable and affordable broadband."
On copyright, she said, the non-profit group was "locked in a constant battle with Hollywood," including a fight over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- truly an intellectual property treaty -- which she said continues to be under seal and hidden from public disclosure.
Sen. Warner introduced one of the awardees, Karen Jackson, the Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Jackson received the "information policy" award "for leading the Commonwealth’s broadband mapping...
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
From BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report
ARLINGTON, Va., September 28, 2009 – Top telecom officials from the Obama administration said that better broadband data, and greater transparency about the operations of government, were two of the key technology policy priorities factoring into the FCC's, and the government’s, approach to technology.
Speaking at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference on Friday, these officials – including the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the leader of the broadband task force at the Federal Communications Commission, and the deputy chief technology officer – highlighted the need for better data on an ongoing basis.
Content available for Subscribers of BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report. Click here to subscribe.
[private_yearly]“It is really hard to answer certain basic questions about broadband; it is kind of a challenge,” said Blair Levin, executive director of the omnibus broadband initiative at the FCC. “Let’s not bemoan us, we should fix it – the only caveat is, do not believe that the collection of data is free.”
Levin said that the need to monitor and track broadband superseded the demands of the federal government’s $7.2 broadband stimulus program in that collecting and analyzing data could “really inform policy” going forward. “The broadband plan does not end, but...
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Friday, September 18th, 2009
Editor’s Note: BroadbandCensus.com extends the invitation to broadband observers and experts to offer thoughts on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s broadband stimulus grant process. Craig Settles, a broadband business strategist, marketing expert at Successful.com, offered this commentary. To submit a commentary, please e-mail: commentary@broadbandcensus.com.
By Craig Settles, Guest Commentary, BroadbandCensus.com
With those words, Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling, head of NTIA, enables many applicants and others worried about the NOFA’s incumbent challenge clause breathe a little easier. And
for those of us who’ve railed against this potentially destructive clause , there is also a bit of satisfaction for not giving up the fight.
Mr. Strickling and Jonathan Adelstein, Administrator for RUS,
were responding to questions from the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology & the Internet when Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA) pushed for answers about the clause. “I want to make sure there’s competition. If the incumbents can just knock out people because they don’t want any to come in, I don’t really think that’s the way for us to go.”
Mr. Strickling gave a reassuring response from both gentlemen and a clearer picture of how this process will run.
Applications with infrastructure proposals have proposed to cover...
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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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Monday, August 3rd, 2009
From BroadbandCensus.com Weekly Report
WASHINGTON, August 3, 2009 – Less than two weeks remain before the first round of applications are due in the federal government’s broadband stimulus grants. The key issues facing the government can be summed up in three words: data, data and data.
Last week began a three-ring affair to sort out the mess that is the current state of our nation’s broadband data. In one circle is the Federal Communications Commission, which opened an inquiry concerning how it should release the key data that it has about broadband deployment – the Form 477. Specifically, the FCC was asking what it means to “aggregate” data, and whether and how confidentiality restrictions should condition its further release of this data. Initial responses were due last Thursday. Many major carrier and non-profit groups have replied.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration was also buzzing last week on the very same topic. In remarks at a Charlottesville, Va., workshop reported on by BroadbandCensus.com, NTIA chief Lawrence Strickling dusted off a lamp and let the data genie out of the bottle. “We need the data: I think it is a national imperative in which this data be collected,” Strickling said about the $350 million...
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