Showing posts with label RUS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RUS. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Reps. Huffman, Thompson, and Nolan Introduce the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Investment Act | Congressman Jared Huffman

Reps. Huffman, Thompson, and Nolan Introduce the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Investment Act | Congressman Jared Huffman: Washington, DC – Congressmen Jared Huffman (D-CA), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Rick Nolan (D-MN) today introduced the Rural Broadband Infrastructure Investment Act, which would unlock new opportunities for broadband deployment on California’s North Coast and in rural communities across America. The bill would make North Coast communities eligible for $670 million in federal broadband financing; promote regional broadband solutions by allowing the Rural Utility Service (RUS) to offer broadband grants in addition to loans and loan guarantees; and increase overall RUS broadband investment to $50 million annually from $25 million. The legislation builds on the successful legacy of the Rural Electrification Act, which brought power and telephone service to rural communities across America during the New Deal.

This is a well intended but grossly underfunded bill. Too little, too late. As Fletcher Kittredge, chief executive officer of Great Works Internet and a member of the Maine Broadband Coalition put it earlier this year, "[t]his is not a million-dollar problem. It is far larger.”

Allocating millions isn't going to build telecom infrastructure the runs in the billions to build. Constructing fiber to serve every premise in the City of Santa Cruz, California, for example, would cost an estimated $30 million -- a major chunk of the $50 million the federal bill would appropriate to the RUS for the entire United States. (h/t to Steve Blum's Blog).

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Telecom coops offer much needed alternative to build out U.S. Internet infrastructure

This Wall Street Journal article explores the Faustian bargain AT&T, America's largest wireline telecom provider, struck with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to begin winding down its obsolete copper Publicly Switched Telephone Network (PSTN):
Mr. Stephenson himself has made it clear that AT&T would rather just sell off its regulated phone territories the way rival Verizon has done. But those sales haven't worked out swimmingly for the buyers, so now buyers can't be found, and neither would regulators likely bless further sales.  AT&T's plan, then, amounts to a compromise: AT&T will spend several billion dollars making undesirable investments if Washington will relieve it of the unsustainable regulatory burdens associated with the old copper voice network.
This is not an optimal solution for either AT&T's shareholders or for the many Americans who despite AT&T's expansion plans would remain disconnected from the Internet and the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service it could provide to replace voice telephone service delivered over the nation's aging copper Publicly Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).  An alternative is clearly needed.

The good news is one exists as does its funding mechanism: cooperatives.  In the 1930s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) made funding available to coops to build the needed infrastructure to deliver electric power and phone service.  The RUS remains in place today.  Given the problems investor-owned telcos like AT&T face deploying needed Internet infrastructure as shown in the WSJ story, the RUS should be given a higher profile and adequately funded to facilitate the much needed telecom coop alternative for the construction and operation of Internet infrastructure.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

California PUC approves $7.9 million supplemental broadband stimulus funding for 9,000 square mile Central Valley wireless project

The California Public Utilities Commission today conditionally approved a resolution providing $7.9 million in supplemental funding for a major wireless broadband project requesting federal funding via broadband infrastructure subsidies allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The supplemental funding allocated from California PUCs' California Advanced Services Fund covers half of a 20 percent recipient match required under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and is contingent on federal funding approval.

The California Valley Broadband (CVB) project, proposed by a the consortium of Moreno Trenching Ltd, Mika Telecom Group and MT2 Telecom, LP, plans to build wireless infrastructure that will serve about 77,195 households in Fresno, Madera, Merced, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, and Stanislaus counties. The consortium claims it will deliver Internet connectivity and VoIP over nearly 9,000 square miles at speeds of up to 20 Mbs on the download side and up to 6 Mbs uploads using two unregulated (WiFi) frequencies and one licensed (WiMAX) frequency "to accommodate range, terrain, tree and other interference issues."

The CVB project faced multiple challenges from incumbent telco and cable companies who claimed they already serve census block groups in the proposed CVB footprint. But PUC staff rejected the bulk of the challenged census block groups finding the incumbents didn't offer broadband as the California PUC defines it: at least 3 Mbs for downloads and 1 Mbs on the upload side.

It remains to be seen however how the NTIA will respond to protests the incumbents lodged against CVB's proposed project that is pending approval for the 80 percent BTOP subsidy.

In allowing incumbents to contest proposed broadband infrastructure projects in the first round of stimulus funding that closed last summer, both the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- which is also distributing a portion of the broadband stimulus funds -- set the stage for an adversarial process that by implication would require the agencies to adjudicate contested applications. However, it's likely they are less able than the California PUC to carry out that function since the PUC can reference the state's broadband availability maps and has dedicated staff evaluating comparatively far fewer proposed projects.

Since putting in place a process to resolve applications contested by the incumbents and make findings of fact regarding whether the area of a proposed infrastructure project is underserved or unserved requires substantial time and resources, my guess is the two federal agencies simply put contested applications into a "hold" file while trying to figure out how to square the applications with incumbent telco/cable objections. That would explain why so many now impatient applicants haven't heard anything whatsoever after rushing to get their applications in by the first round funding deadline in mid-August of 2009 after having been initially led to believe they'd know by the year end holidays at the latest whether their projects were approved for funding.

This sets the stage for political blow back from federal and state representatives in areas where broadband stimulus projects in their districts are stuck in limbo after hearing from frustrated constituents asking them to expedite approval of their applications. The incumbents couldn't stop the broadband stimulus provisions from becoming law in the rush to enact ARRA one year ago. So they may instead opted to fend off threats to their territorial hegemony (remember, an incumbent telco/cable "service territory" doesn't mean everyone is served) in a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy to vector and shoot down stimulus applications one by one.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Second and final broadband stimulus funding rules issued

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today issued guidelines for the second and last funding round to disburse $7.2 billion allocated for broadband infrastructure and adoption in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Here's a news release on the Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) as well as links to the NOFAs for the NTIA's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the USDA/RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

Given the delays in awarding funds from the first broadband stimulus round that closed last August, I expected this NOFA might not appear until mid-March at the earliest. Particularly given the NTIA and USDA solicited comments late last year on the funding requirements that elicited plenty of complaints and suggestions to digest.

I suspect the delays in making first round broadband infrastructure awards -- in large part likely due to numerous incumbent challenges -- prompted the NTIA and USDA accelerate the timetable in order to meet the ARRA requirement the broadband stimulus funds be fully disbursed by Sept. 30 of this year.

Unlike the first round, the latest NOFA calls for separate applications to each agency, with the NTIA concentrating on middle mile telecommunications infrastructure. I suspect by putting last mile far down on the list of funding priorities, the NTIA is hoping to cut down on the number of incumbent challenges tying up infrastructure awards in non-rural areas.

The RUS/BIP NOFA covers both middle mile and last mile infrastructure with an emphasis on the latter in unserved rural areas. Any area in which at least 50 percent of premises lack access to broadband of 5 Mbps combined for upstream and downstream throughput and is at least 75 percent rural combined is eligible under the BIP guidelines.

If a proposed BIP project area includes premises with no access to wireline -- or fixed or mobile wireless service -- offering throughput at the now obsolete Federal Communications Commission definition of broadband of at least 768 Kbs down 200 Kbs up, it is deemed "unserved" under BIP.

Unfortunately, the BIP squanders precious funds with a new separate category to underwrite discounted satellite Internet service, which in the view of this blogger is contrary to the ARRA's intent to fund advanced telecommunications infrastructure and not stopgap, substandard substitutes such as satellite.

Unlike in the first funding round, applicants no longer need define their projects based on contiguous census blocks. BTOP applicants must now use census block groups or tracts. BIP applicants can define their proposed service area boundaries as they wish using an mapping tool included in the online funding application.

Like the first round, the window for applications opens on short notice and remains open only briefly: from Feb. 16 to March 15. That means applicants will once again have to scramble which could like the first round in 2009 produce hastily developed and inferior quality applications.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

First round of U.S. broadband stimulus funding draws deluge of applications

It's a good thing the Obama administration sees the $7.2 billion in grants and loans for broadband infrastructure allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) as a mere down payment on building out the nation's incomplete telecommunications infrastructure.

The two federal agencies overseeing the disbursement of the funding -- the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) -- announced today they received proposals requesting seven times the $4 billion set aside for the first funding round. Two more rounds later this year and early in 2010 will dispense the balance of the allocated ARRA funding.

Link to the agencies' press release here.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Second NOFA for broadband stimulus funds should include seed funding for telecom coops

Cooperatives are in the news a lot this week. Specifically, health care cooperatives as a more politically palatable alternative to a Medicare- like government insurance "public option" plan that is generating a lot of controversy as Congress crafts an overhaul of private U.S. health care finance.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is currently fleshing out the concept, which would reportedly include about $6 billion in seed funding to help the health care cooperatives get up and running.

As the National Telecommunications and Information Administraiton (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) prepare the Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the second round of federal economic stimulus subsidies for broadband infrastructure this fall, they should include a similar provision for telecom consumer coops. Getting adequate funding and/or loan guarantees to cover the not insignificant cost of experts and consultants to put together a preliminary network design and business case analysis/long range business plan in time to meet the NOFA application deadline can be an insurmountable hurdle for coops that might otherwise propose solid plans to better connect areas that are unserved or underserved when it comes to broadband.

The guidelines for the first NOFA (applications are due this week) allowed for up to five percent of project planning costs to be refunded -- but only if the project is approved. However, that creates a Catch-22 for coops since they can't even develop a proposal that meets the NOFA requirements without these costs covered at the outset, which means a lot of potentially meritorious projects could fall by the wayside.

The second NOFA should include a preliminary step to allow telecom coops that have or have applied for 501(c)(12) tax exempt status to apply for grant funding or loan guarantees to cover project planning costs on the condition that they engage qualified consultants on an arms-length basis and put forth a good faith effort to complete the work within a relatively short period of time (60 days, for example).

They would then have to propose their projects immediately thereafter if the planning work shows the proposed project would meet the NOFA guidelines and be economically sustainable. If the project turns out not to be so based on preliminary design and business planning, that would give coops the opportunity to tweak their proposals to comply with the guidelines or drop them, saving both them and the federal agencies the time and effort of reviewing unfeasible proposals.

Full disclosure: Your blogger is founder and president of a startup telecom cooperative in El Dorado County, California.