MuniWireless » Legislation and public policy

Harold Feld on the National Broadband Plan: what we got, did not get

Esme Vos — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:09:45 +0000

Harold Feld has written an article analyzing the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. Since he managed to get through the entire piece (unlike me), his take on the Plan is worth reading, especially because he disagrees with me on the issue of incumbent influence.

We do agree on one critical factor: he and I are appalled that structural separation is not part of the Plan. Harold says:

No, I did not get all I want. No one ever does. On some issues, such as structural separation, we came up empty. On other issues, such as forcing the Bells to make their old copper lines available to rivals, the Plan wusses out rather than swinging for the bleachers. But there is a huge difference between “we did not get everything we thought would make this plan fantastic” and “it is a worthless fetid steaming piece of refuse.” And, as we’ve always known, the real fun begins with the numerous proceedings the Plan recommends and which the full Commission must vote to begin.

Read Harold’s post on the National Broadband Plan at Public Knowledge.

New report: Clearwire’s 4G spectrum advantage

Paul Kapustka — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:24:00 +0000

“I believe that the biggest threat to the future of mobile in America is the looming spectrum crisis.”
– FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, October 2009

Is the wireless world running out of available airwaves? From a certain perspective, it might seem that way. The struggles of AT&T’s attempts to keep its iPhone customers happy have become a national news story, and government officials are already working on plans to free up more wireless spectrum for use by mobile broadband providers, anticipating an industry-wide need in the near future.

And though Verizon Wireless is quick to tout its network’s strengths over that of its main competitor, even Verizon’s chief technology officer is already talking publicly about how scarce network resources may soon put an end to all-you-can-eat wireless data pricing. At the center of these concerns is wireless spectrum, specifically the licensed, regulated airwaves over which wireless providers send their signals — and what will happen if the largest wireless networks run out of room.

This week when the FCC announced its National Broadband Plan, it included provisions for freeing up more spectrum — but even the most optimistic projections don’t see any new spectrum coming on the commercial marketplace anytime soon, given the years-long legal wranglings that any spectrum switches will entail. So for many providers and their potential users, the spectrum crisis is looming and real.

Standing aside from this quandry, however, is nascent national WiMAX provider Clearwire Corp. (Nasdaq: CLWR), which is now in its second full year of mobile-WiMAX market launches. Unlike the country’s cellular giants, Clearwire actually possesses a wealth of spectrum riches. In many major population markets in the U.S., Clearwire has at least two to three times as much spectrum “depth” as AT&T and Verizon, holdings that will allow Clearwire to provide high-speed data to millions and millions of new customers, without having to rely on the government or industry to re-allocate airwaves anytime soon.

In our latest report, titled Clearwire’s Spectrum: The 4G Advantage, we cover in detail the historic underpinnings of the 2.5 GHz band that Clearwire uses, the business decisions and events that put the company in control of the spectrum, and how its breadth and depth give Clearwire a market advantage over its wireless-provider competitors. In a nation facing a “spectrum crisis,” Clearwire stands alone in having enough available airwaves to build a “network of networks,” both now and as far into the future as its builders can see. Download our free report and learn why.

FCC releases National Broadband Plan

Esme Vos — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:04:38 +0000

The FCC has unveiled the National Broadband Plan whose goal is to ensure every American has access to broadband. The plan addresses broadband competition, reallocating spectrum for mobile broadband, reforming universal service regulations and nudging public schools, health care providers and government agencies to make maximum use of broadband. You can download the National Broadband Plan from the FCC website (PDF).

I read parts of the National Broadband Plan and was impressed by its ambition and scope, but after a few pages, I lost my patience. As long as the incumbents exert a disproportionate influence members of Congress and the Senate through their multi-million dollar lobbying efforts, nothing will happen on a national scale.

I believe that local government initiatives such as the Lafayette fiber network, and projects initiated by private companies such as Google with its fiber experiment, will have a far greater impact on the speed and cost of broadband delivered to Americans.

The only thing that will bring high-speed broadband at a low cost to the US is this: force the incumbents to share their copper and fiber networks with other service providers on a non-discriminatory basis AND set the prices for wholesale, as they do in Europe. That’s it.

Everything else is useless, time-wasting babble.

The FCC lets you find out just how lousy your broadband connection is

Esme Vos — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:50:41 +0000

Broadband speed tests are nothing new to many readers of this site. Most of us probably use Speedtest.net. But the fact that the FCC has posted a broadband test tool profiled prominently on the Broadband.gov website, shows how politically sensitive broadband — its presence and absence, its cost and speed — has become. It’s getting to be like electricity. If you don’t have it, you might as well be living on another planet.

The FCC’s tool lets you measure download and upload speeds, as well as latency and jitter (the last two are important for video and voice applications). Nobody talks about latency and jitter, and that is a shame. For high quality video conferencing, less than 20 ms of jitter is best. Latency under 30 ms is excellent.

Test results vary depending on the test

When you run the test, it randomly assigns you to the Ookla test or the M-Lab test. Note: The M-Lab test does not work with Safari, Chrome and Opera browsers. You need to use Firefox or (heaven forbid) Internet Explorer.

When I measured my broadband connection at home using the FCC’s test (both Ookla and M-Lab) against Speedtest, this is what I got. The reported speeds, latency and jitter vary wildly among the different tests. I ran the tests over my Wi-Fi network (using Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n) and a new iMac. My ISP is Webpass in San Francisco. The Ookla test result in (2) for upload speed is the oddest one.

Both Speedtest and M-Lab reported my upload speed to be between 58 megabits per second and 63 megabits per second. Jitter and latency, according to the M-Lab test, are quite low, with 17 ms and 18 ms respectively. Using PingTest, they were 24 ms and 15 ms.

(1) Speedtest and PingTest

(2) FCC Test (Ookla results)

(3) FCC Test (M-Lab results)

And if you have no broadband?

For those who can’t even measure broadband speeds because they’ve got NO broadband, the FCC has an option: the Broadband DeadZone Report. Here’s where you get to tell our civil servants in Washington that you don’t have broadband. I wonder if the FCC will put up a Google maps mashup of all this data.

If you have a wicked sense of humor, you might actually fill in this page if your broadband download and upload speeds are under 10 megabits per second. But, let’s not test the FCC’s patience.

Are you a measurement freak?

If, like me, you’re into measuring all sorts of aspects about your Internet connection, visit the M-Lab website. You can use their tools to test if your ISP is blocking or throttling BitTorrent, you can diagnose problems limiting speed, and determine if your ISP is degrading the performance of certain applications or a subset of users, and more.

American Samoa and Virginia get broadband mapping grants

Esme Vos — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:21:54 +0000

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded grants to fund broadband mapping and planning activities in Virginia and American Samoa under NTIA’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program. The program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will increase broadband access and adoption through better data collection and broadband planning. The data will be displayed in NTIA’s national broadband map, a tool that will inform policymakers’ efforts and provide consumers with improved information on the broadband Internet services available to them.

NTIA received applications representing all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia to participate in the program, meaning that all governments that were eligible to apply for grants did so, whether directly or through a designated entity. NTIA has now awarded 54 grants totaling approximately $102 million under the program, including today’s announcement.

“Congress rightly recognized that increasing broadband access and adoption in communities being left behind in the 21st Century economy depends on better data collection and broadband planning. Our goal is to carry out this initiative on schedule and at the lowest cost necessary to do the job right,” said Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling. “We have now awarded all but two of the grants in the program and will continue to work with the remaining applicants so they can bring the benefits of broadband to more of their citizens.”

American Samoa: NTIA has awarded the American Samoa Office of the Governor approximately $558,000 for broadband data collection and mapping activities over a two-year period and $500,000 for broadband planning activities over a two-year period in American Samoa, bringing the total grant award to approximately $1.1 million. The Office of the Governor is the designated entity for the territory of American Samoa.

Virginia: NTIA has awarded the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology $1,799,979 for broadband data collection and mapping activities over a two-year period and $500,000 for broadband planning activities over a two-year period in Virginia, bringing the total grant award to approximately $2.3 million. The Virginia Center for Innovative Technology is the designated entity for the state of Virginia.

NTIA carefully evaluates each application to determine whether the applicant directly represents the interests of the state. This state-applicant connection is especially critical in the context of the broadband planning activities that NTIA considers the responsibility of the state. CNMI and Guam are providing direction and supervision to the planning activities that will be undertaken by its designated entity, which is a non-state government entity, to ensure that planning funds are used to address the specific needs of the state.

Awardees will collect and verify the availability, speed, and location of broadband across the state. This activity is to be conducted on a semi-annual basis in the next two years, with the data to be presented in a clear and accessible format to the public, government, and the research community.

The State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program is a matching grant program that implements the joint purposes of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Broadband Data Improvement Act (BDIA). The program will provide grants to assist states or their designees in gathering and verifying state-specific data on the availability, speed, location, and technology type of broadband services. The data they collect and compile will also be used to develop publicly available state-wide broadband maps and to inform the comprehensive, interactive, and searchable national broadband map that NTIA is required by the Recovery Act to create and make publicly available by February 17, 2011.

The national broadband map will publicly display the geographic areas where broadband service is available; the technology used to provide the service; the speeds of the service; and broadband service availability at public schools, libraries, hospitals, colleges, universities, and public buildings. The national map will also be searchable by address and show the broadband providers offering service in the corresponding census block or street segment.

All awardees, except the Territorial governments in Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, are required to contribute at least 20 percent non-federal matching funds toward project costs. In addition, while the BDIA mandates that each state may designate only one eligible entity to receive funds under the program, each state’s applicant will be carefully evaluated and must meet the standards described in NTIA’s Notice of Funds Availability for this program in order to receive funding.

U.S. Department of Commerce’s NTIA serves as the executive branch agency principally responsible for advising the President on communications and information policy. For more information about the NTIA, visit www.ntia.doc.gov.

Louisiana gets $80M broadband stimulus grant

Esme Vos — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:49:24 +0000

The NTIA has provided an $80 million broadband stimulus grant to the Louisiana Broadband Alliance to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education and healthcare. The grant will bring high-speed Internet access to more than 80 community anchor institutions – including universities, K-12 schools, libraries, healthcare facilities – and lay the groundwork for bringing affordable broadband service to thousands of homes and businesses in the region.

The Louisiana Broadband Alliance, a collaboration among six state agencies, plans to deploy more than 900 miles of fiber-optic network to expand broadband Internet service in some of the most economically distressed regions of Louisiana. The new network intends to provide direct connections for more than 80 community anchor institutions including universities, K-12 schools, libraries, and healthcare facilities. The 3,488-square-mile service area includes 12 impoverished parishes targeted by the state’s Louisiana Delta Initiative and a separate five-parish area that is home to four federally-recognized American Indian Tribes. The new network would connect to the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI), a more than 1,600 mile fiber-optic network that connects Louisiana and Mississippi research universities to National LambdaRail and Internet2.

Earlier this week, Secretary Gary Locke of the Commerce Department (which runs the NTIA) announced a $1.4 million grant to the Deaf Action Center of Louisiana to provide on-demand, cost-effective sign language interpretation at community anchor institutions such as hospitals, courts, public safety agencies, shelters, schools and libraries.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), funded by the Recovery Act, provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure, enhance and expand public computer centers, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service.

“Today, we have taken a big leap in our efforts to expand high-speed internet to throughout rural Louisiana, including the Delta parishes in the Northeast part of our state,” Senator Mary Landrieu said. “Creating jobs and spurring rural small business growth, these new funds will increase broadband capacity at our homes, schools, and hospitals to advance education, research, and healthcare delivery to areas in need of modern infrastructure. I am thankful for the Department of Commerce’s support of this, and the many, innovative projects we have going on in Louisiana to improve broadband access.”

NTIA received more than 1,800 applications proposing projects totaling nearly $19 billion during the first BTOP funding round and is currently awarding grants on a rolling basis. NTIA is currently accepting BTOP applications for a second funding round. Applications for Public Computer Center and Sustainable Broadband Adoption projects are accepted through March 15, 2010 and Comprehensive Community Infrastructure projects are accepted through March 26, 2010.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided a total of $7.2 billion to NTIA and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to fund projects that will expand access to and adoption of broadband services. Of that funding, NTIA will utilize $4.7 billion for grants to deploy broadband infrastructure in the United States, expand public computer center capacity, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service. NTIA will announce all grant awards by September 30, 2010.

What’s the incumbent response to Google Fiber? What’s our response?

Esme Vos — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:47:40 +0000

No need to wonder what the incumbents will do. We, who have been pushing for municipal and community owned broadband, open networks, line-sharing and alternatives to the monopoly/duopoly, know all too well that cable and incumbent telecom operators will oppose Google’s attempts to bring more competition into the “middle mile” and the last mile.

This article on AnnArbor.com cites me and others like Steve Pierce, co-founder of Wireless Ypsilanti, expressing our belief that the incumbents will spend millions of dollars, as they always have, to block Google fiber.

I must add a few comments to the article, which is very short, and does not tell the whole story.

Many of us still think (unconsciously) of Google as this scrappy little startup who needs all the help it can get to go up against the Big Guys. But it isn’t. Google has become a large, highly profitable company; it has money and an army of lobbyists to fight the cable/DSL guys.

In the end, here we are again, with a critical piece of infrastructure completely owned by one company – a private enterprise beholden only to its shareholders. Does it make you sleep more peacefully knowing that the fiber backhaul your ISP uses is owned and controlled by a company that also happens to control the search market? Sure, Google will stick it to the hated cable/DSL duopoly, but what happens when things start turning ugly for Google in its key market (search)? What happens when Google starts feeling the heat of competition? Google is already the subject of an antitrust investigation by the European Commission.

Haven’t we learned any lessons from the past? If you allow one company – a cable operator, telco, Internet search engine – to control access to communications, in the middle or last mile, it will not give up so easily and it will do everything in its power to stop competitors. It will use the political process – buying elected officials – to do its bidding.

Do you think Google, a highly profitable enterprise, will be much nicer? What controls should we be putting on companies like Google that will end up owning such an important piece of infrastructure?

Don’t get me wrong. I am very happy to see Google come in and give the incumbents the thrashing they deserve. But we have to move beyond our emotions and our tendency to view Google=good/incumbents=bad. We have to reject the mainstream media’s obsession with sensationalizing everything and turning complex matters such as this into a Grand Wrestling Match.

Before we respond to the Google Fiber Plan, we must sit down, think carefully, debate, and finally instruct our civil servants (yes, it’s hard to write out that phrase because it seems so quaint in these days when government is controlled by big corporations) to negotiate with Google and make laws that benefit us – the people – in the long term. That means we must not replicate the odious Cable Franchise Model, this time on fiber or wireless networks.

Nevada gets $4.7M broadband stimulus grant for public computer centers

Esme Vos — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:51:16 +0000

The NTIA has awarded $4.7 million to the Las Vegas-Clark County Urban League (in partnership with the city of Las Vegas and the Housing Authority of Clark County) to upgrade existing public computer centers and open new ones in public housing developments, community and senior centers. The money will also be used for job training, community health programs and courses that teach computer skills. The centers will nearly triple the number of users served per week to 5,000, expanding access to interactive and online job search tools, and training in both English and Spanish.

“This critical investment will expand computer and high-speed Internet service access to Nevada residents most in need, helping to make them full participants in today’s 21st century information economy,” Locke said. “Having access to the Internet’s economic, health and educational benefits will help to improve the quality of life in these communities.”

Public housing developments, community, and senior centers provide important services for southern Nevadans and thanks to these economic recovery funds they will be expanded,” Reid said. “I appreciate Secretary Locke making these funds available for Nevadans who rely on the computer classes, health programs and job training programs at these centers.”

Level 3 gets $13.8M in broadband stimulus grants

Esme Vos — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:04:18 +0000

Level 3 is one of the biggest winners of broadband stimulus funding from the NTIA. It has received $13.8 million to build new interconnection points and expand its broadband networks in California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas, bringing broadband speeds of up to 10 Gbps. Level 3 acts as a middle mile provider for institutions and Internet service providers.

The other big winner is the OpenCape Corporation, which received $32 million to deploy 350 miles of fiber and over 100 miles of microwave broadband network links in the Cape Cod region.

Today’s announcement of the winners of broadband stimulus grants are listed below.

California: Level 3 EON, LLC: $3.3 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $1.1 million applicant-provided match to build 11 new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection – essentially on-ramps to the Internet – will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 240,000 households, 9,900 businesses, and 240 anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies, and healthcare providers.

Florida: Level 3 EON, LLC: $2.1 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $689,000 applicant-provided match to build seven new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 180,000 households, 12,300 businesses, and 100 community anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies, and healthcare providers.

Florida: School Board of Miami-Dade County: $3.5 million sustainable broadband adoption grant with an additional $996,000 applicant-provided match to increase broadband adoption among low-income middle school students and their families by an estimated 15,000 households. The project plans to offer 60,000 hours of computer training to 30,000 students and their parents, provide low-cost refurbished laptops to 6,000 students and their families, and offer discounted Internet service to 10,000 families.

Georgia: Columbia County Information Technology Department: $13.5 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $4.5 million applicant-provided match to build a 220-mile, county-wide fiber network to connect nearly 150 community anchor institutions and enhance healthcare, public safety, and government services throughout the region. The project plans to facilitate the creation of a high-capacity data center at the Medical College of Georgia, support a sophisticated county-wide traffic and water control system, enable 60 free Wi-Fi hotspots in public locations, and construct five wireless towers to enhance public safety communications as well as improve wireless communications capabilities throughout the region.

Georgia: Level 3 EON, LLC: $1.4 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $476,000 applicant-provided match to build four new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection – essentially on-ramps to the Internet – will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 198,000 households, 13,000 businesses, and 190 anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies, and healthcare providers.

Illinois: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois: $22.5 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $6.8 million applicant-provided match to construct 187 miles of fiber-optic broadband network in Urbana, Champaign and Savoy to provide high-speed connectivity to community anchor institutions, and support fiber-to-the-home services in four low-income neighborhoods. The project expects to provide speeds of at least 100 Mbps to directly connect 143 anchor institutions, including schools, social service agencies, healthcare facilities, youth centers, public library systems and higher education institutions.

Indiana: Educational Networks of America, Inc.: $14.3 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $4 million applicant-provided match to improve educational opportunities for an estimated 290,000 students and library patrons by deploying 560 miles of fiber that will deliver 100 Mbps connections to 145 public schools and libraries. In addition, the project expects to spur affordable broadband Internet service for as many as 200,000 households, 30,000 businesses and 630 community anchor institutions by enabling local Internet providers to connect to the project’s open network.

Kansas: Level 3 EON, LLC: $998,000 broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $333,000 applicant-provided match to build four new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 50,000 households, 3,600 businesses and 150 community anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies, and healthcare providers.

Louisiana: Deaf Action Center of Louisiana: $1.4 million public computer center grant with an additional $436,000 applicant-provided match to install 81 new videoconferencing stations, and enhance the user experience at 19 existing stations that serve people who are deaf and hard of hearing in Northwest Louisiana, and individual sites in Alabama, California, and Texas. The project intends to use broadband and videoconference technology to provide on-demand, cost-effective sign language interpretation at community anchor institutions such as hospitals, courts, public safety agencies, shelters, schools and libraries.

Massachusetts: OpenCape Corporation: $32 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $8.3 million applicant-provided match to deploy 350 miles of fiber and over 100 miles of microwave broadband network links in the Cape Cod region, directly connecting more than 70 anchor institutions, including emergency shelters, libraries, colleges, academic research facilities and town or public safety facilities. These anchors would receive 100 Mbs service, allowing them to support a wide range of economic, educational, public safety and healthcare-related applications.

Massachusetts: Cambridge Housing Authority: $699,000 public computer center grant with an additional $541,000 applicant-provided match to reopen and expand three public computer centers that serve approximately 10,000 public housing residents, including low-income households, immigrants, seniors and minorities. The Cambridge Housing Authority intends to replace 24 workstations and add 16 new ones at the centers to serve an expected 420 new users per week with access to broadband technology, computer courses, job training and literacy programs.

Maryland: Coppin State University: $932,000 public computer center grant with an additional $275,000 applicant-provided match to provide broadband access and computer education to the Coppin Heights-Rosemont community, a low-income neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland with a high minority population. Consistent with the community’s existing revitalization plan, Coppin State University will establish a 60-workstation computer center for use by the local community, and anticipates offering 15 training and educational courses on a regular basis, serving more than an estimated 500 users per week and more than 12,000 unique users within two years.

North Carolina: Mitchell County Historic Courthouse Foundation: $239,000 public computer center grant with an additional $60,000 applicant-provided match to more than double the number of public computer workstations available to residents of Mitchell County, provide job training and educational courses through the local community college and extension service, and expand broadband Internet access by creating a Wi-Fi hotspot in the newly-renovated historic courthouse that will reach the adjacent library and parts of downtown Bakersville, North Carolina.

New Mexico: Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority: $176,000 public computer center grant with an additional $52,000 applicant-provided match to expand the capacity of one public computer center and create an additional public computer center at two public housing sites, offering broadband access and computer training to low-income families, minorities, disadvantaged youth, disabled, and elderly Santa Fe residents. The project expects to add 13 new broadband workstations and replace seven workstations, enabling the centers to increase the number of users served per week from 27 to 135.

Ohio: OneCommunity: $18.7 million sustainable broadband adoption grant with an additional $4.8 million applicant-provided match to employ a collaborative strategy to expand broadband adoption by almost 20,000 households in targeted communities in five states. OneCommunity plans to work with non-profit and community organizations to implement neighbor-to-neighbor broadband adoption and awareness campaigns reaching an estimated 334,000 low-income individuals, and provide training and services to an estimated 33,000 people in Akron, Cleveland, and Zanesville, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Gulfport/Biloxi, Mississippi; Lexington, Kentucky and Bradenton, Florida. (This project benefits Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and Mississippi as well.)

Oregon: Lane Council of Governments: $8.3 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $2.1 million applicant-provided match to enhance an existing fiber-optic backbone and deploy 124 miles of fiber-optic network that will deliver broadband capabilities across three large, mostly rural counties and the Klamath Tribal region in Western Oregon. The project plans to enhance education, healthcare delivery, job training, and government services by providing 100 Mbs connections for more than 100 community anchor institutions, including medical centers, public safety entities, schools, community colleges and libraries.

Puerto Rico: Iniciativa Tecnolégica Centro Oriental, Inc. (INTECO, Inc.): $12.9 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $3.4 million applicant-provided match to deploy a multifaceted 515 mile network that will include both wireless and fiber connections in some of the neediest areas of Puerto Rico. The project plans to directly connect nearly 250 anchor institutions including schools, hospitals, municipal facilities, police stations and libraries. It will also facilitate new or improved broadband Internet access for local consumers, including up to 300 anchor institutions, 136,000 households, and 600 businesses and industrial centers, by enabling local service providers to connect to the project’s open network.

Tennessee: Level 3 EON: $1.3 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $432,000 applicant-provided match to build four new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 188,000 households, 9,600 businesses, and 150 community anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies and healthcare providers.

Tennessee: DeltaCom, Inc.: $9.4 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $2.3 million applicant-provided match to provide a 544-mile high-capacity fiber-optic broadband network that will provide high-speed connections for more than 50 community anchor institutions in five Eastern Tennessee communities, from Chattanooga through Knoxville to Johnson City and Bristol. The project expects to spur more affordable broadband Internet access for over 34,000 households, 5,000 businesses, and 270 anchor institutions by allowing local Internet providers to connect to the project’s open network.

Texas: Level 3 EON: $4.7 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $1.6 million applicant-provided match to build 17 new access points on Level 3’s existing broadband network. These additional points of interconnection will offer broadband speeds between 50 Mbps and 10 Gbps on an open and nondiscriminatory basis to local Internet service providers, enabling them to provide enhanced broadband capabilities to as many as 400,000 households, 21,000 businesses, and 214 community anchor institutions, including schools, government agencies and healthcare providers.

Wisconsin: The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System: $5.1 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $3.7 million applicant-provided match to deploy more than 100 miles of fiber-optic infrastructure to provide high-capacity broadband Internet connections for community anchor institutions, and enable last-mile broadband services throughout the Madison, Middleton, and Monona, Wisconsin region. The project expects to directly connect nearly 100 community anchor institutions, including schools, public safety organizations, and a community college, at speeds of up to 10 Gbps.

West Virginia: Hardy Telecommunications, Inc.: $3.2 million broadband infrastructure grant with an additional $814,000 applicant-provided match to build a 177-mile high-capacity fiber-optic network to Hardy County, West Virginia, a sparsely populated region of the state with difficult terrain. The project intends to connect an estimated 35 anchor institutions, such as emergency agencies, government offices, libraries, and colleges, as well as spur more affordable high-speed Internet service for up to 1,900 households and 190 businesses by enabling local Internet service providers to connect to the project’s open network.

West Virginia: WorkForce West Virginia: $1.9 million public computer center grant with an additional $568,000 applicant-provided match to improve access to job information, career counseling, and skills training by upgrading and expanding 20 WorkForce West Virginia One-Stop career centers throughout the state. This project intends to replace all of the existing 165 computer workstations at the centers, add 80 new workstations, and serve almost 2,300 additional users per week, nearly double their current traffic.

Fact sheets with further information about all BTOP grants are available on the NTIA web site here: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/projects.html.

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, enhance and expand public computer centers, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service.

BIP, BTOP broadband infrastructure grant deadlines extended

Esme Vos — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:52:49 +0000

NTIA and RUS will grant a limited extension of time to file infrastructure applications in the second funding round. Specifically, applicants for BTOP Comprehensive Community Infrastructure projects will have until March 26th to file their applications to NTIA. Applicants for BIP infrastructure projects will have until March 29th to file their applications to RUS. Applications in NTIA’s two other project categories – Public Computer Centers and Sustainable Broadband Adoption – remain due on March 15th.