Showing posts with label broadband stimulus funding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broadband stimulus funding. Show all posts

Friday, January 29, 2010

Last mile fiber project lands broadband stimulus award, sparks strong interest from other rural electric coops

Telecommunications equipment manufacturer Pulse is reportedly getting deluged with inquiries from rural electric cooperatives after it successfully partnered with a rural electric cooperative in Northeast Missouri to score $19 million in last mile broadband stimulus funding from the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

What's sparking (pun intended) interest in the
Ralls County Electric Cooperative project is its fiber to the premises design that utilizes "distributed tap architecture" for easy deployment of drops that's cost effective at population densities of as few as four homes per mile, reports Light Reading's Cable Digital News.

The take away from this story isn't about the technology alone. It shows there is tremendous interest in the cooperative business model to bring advanced telecommunications services to unserved and underserved areas of the United States just as coops did a century ago when rural electric and other utility cooperatives were first formed.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Jump in online video calls for higher FCC minimum broadband definition

PC Magazine reports this week on a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that found the percentage of adults who watch video online has nearly doubled since 2006, up to 62 percent versus 33 percent in December 2006.

The item underscores the inadequacy of the current minimum definition of broadband of at leasat 768 Kbs download standard adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which has also been written into the rules governing the disbursement of $7.2 billion in federal economic stimulus funds for broadband infrastructure. That speed isn't going to hack it for video, which most observers agree is the fastest growing form of online content.

The 768 Kbs standard also represents a huge step down from the speeds Congress contemplated in a January draft version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as minimally defining wireline broadband of at least 5 Mbs download and 1 Mbs uploads and 45 Mbs on the downside and 20 Mbs up for "advanced" wireline broadband.

Under the stimulus legislation, the FCC is required to develop a national broadband plan and present it to Congress next February. The agency should dispose of its outdated definition of broadband and instead adopt the minimum standards outlined in the draft stimulus legislation as they are better matched to meet the growing bandwidth requirements of online video.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Minnesota municipalities don't like broadband stimulus rules

The Minneapolis StarTribune.com reports Minnesota municipalities are having second thoughts about applying for some of the $7.2 billion in taxpayer subsidized grants and loans allocated in the federal economic stimulus package for broadband infrastructure construction.

The reason is the 121 pages of guidelines issued July 1 by the two federal agencies that will review and determine which projects get funded require applicants to conduct door to door censuses of their proposed project areas to determine if the census blocks contained in their contemplated project areas qualify for funding under the rules' definitions of what constitutes an unserved or underserved census block. Skipping this step could jeopardize a project since it could be rejected outright by the agencies for lack of required documentation of need or challenged by incumbent providers as permitted under the guidelines.

An excerpt from the article:

The problem, as city and county broadband planners see it, has less to do with technology than with the sheer legwork required to create an acceptable proposal.

Applicants must prove that all the areas they propose to serve would meet a narrow federal definition of being underserved -- that 50 percent or more households in the area lack broadband access, or that fewer than 40 percent of the households already subscribe to broadband. That puts the burden on cities and counties to undertake expensive and time-consuming door-to-door surveys, because telephone and cable companies don't reveal which areas they serve.

The Minnesota munis' concerns are understandable. They don't see themselves as being in the census business. Conducting a door to door survey is a costly and time consuming task that means many prospective applicants have concluded there's no way they can submit project applications to the agencies by the Aug. 14 deadline for the first round of funding.

Monday, July 06, 2009

U.S. broadband stimulus funding rules for "underserved" areas could produce controversy, delay

While designed to stimulate employment and do so quickly, the federal economic stimulus package enacted in February and specifically the $7.2 billion it allocated as a down payment on a badly needed upgrade of America's aged telecommunications infrastructure may not work as rapidly as intended. With unemployment persisting and exceeding that forecast by the Obama administration as it took office just before the enactment of the stimulus package, this could prove problematic.

The $7.2 billion allocation is targeted for build out of telecom infrastructure in those areas of the nation that are "unserved" and "underserved" when it comes to broadband access. Under the rules governing the award of grants and loans issued last week by the two federal agencies overseeing them, generally only deep rural America where dialup and satellite are the sole options for Internet connectivity will likely meet the definition of unserved. Proposed broadband projects to serve these areas are unlikely to generate much controversy.

However much of the U.S. is chock a block with broadband black holes located in metro areas outside of rural areas due to incomplete buildout of the existing telco and cable company wireline infrastructure and the well known technological shortcomings of DSL over copper. Most of these census blocks will fall into the underserved category. The definition of what constitutes underserved is complex and likely to lead to controversy, delay and potential litigation that could frustrate the key goal of the stimulus funding: to rapidly preserve and generate jobs.

Since the rules require maps of the contiguous census blocks of proposed broadband projects to be posted at a Web site run by the two agenices administering the stimulus funds and stipulate that only one project can be approved for a given area, it's possible -- if not probable -- that existing providers will challenge some of the proposed projects as not in compliance with the definition of underserved. They could contend that they serve at least half of a given census block with wireline broadband, thereby eliminating a key element of the definition of an underserved census block. Under the guidelines, such a challenge would quickly put a proposed project on hold or ultimately result in its rejection by the agencies.

The incumbent wireline providers -- typically deep pocketed telcos and cable providers -- could tie up these proposed projects both in challenges before the agencies and in court if necessary. Incumbent wireline providers tend to view their service areas as franchises and even sovereign territory regardless of whether (or not as is often the case) they are actually providing services throughout them.

Wireless providers could also stymie proposed projects in underserved areas, but for them it could be harder. Under the rules, a census block is considered underserved if no wireless broadband provider advertises service providing at least 3 Mbs download. That eliminates 3G cellular based wireless as well as many fixed terrestrial Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) since in underserved areas they typically offer download speeds below 3 Mbs. That's because both prefer relatively lower cost T-1 lines for backhaul that can't provide 3 Mbs download speeds in order to enhance their profit margins.

Even if an area doesn't qualify as underserved under these parameters, a third prong of the definition deems it such if only 40 percent or fewer households within the census block subscribe to broadband service. That's likely to be the case in many underserved areas due to the poor value wireless providers currently offer in terms of high monthly rates for slow speeds barely adequate to support video, high latency and in the case of 3G services, bandwidth useage caps similar to those employed by satellite Internet providers.

Regarding the third underserved qualification -- broadband take up of 40 percent of households or less -- how is that figure to be determined both for the purpose of documenting proposed projects as required under the agencies' guidelines or in the case of disputes? Must those proposing to serve these census blocks engage a polling company to go door to door asking residents if they subscribe to broadband services? That's certain to introduce cost and delay for projects proposing to serve "underserved" areas. And in the case of disputes, will the parties be forced to hire an independent pollster, adding even more cost and delay?

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Australian blogger offers bearish view on U.S. broadband stimulus

Here's what Australian Paul Budde has to say on the U.S. government's rules on broadband stimulus funding released this week:

With countries like Australia and New Zealand implementing infrastructure that can deliver 100Mb/s for their next generation broadband—and with most Europeans not too far behind this—it is quite shocking to see that the $7.2 billion economic stimulus package in the USA (under the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP)) requires nothing more than 768 kilobits per second (kb/s) downstream and 200 kb/s upstream.

I am sure that some of you will think that I have misread this but, no, that is indeed the case.

In 2003 Hong Kong decided not to classify as broadband any service that didn't provide 2Mb/s!

The sad part of the story is that, as this money will mainly be deployed in rural America, this guarantees an enormous digital divide in the USA. AT&T and Verizon already offer FttH services in some of the more affluent suburbs, and they are currently extending these services guaranteeing a progressive increase in the quality of broadband services provided to these markets; however, for the foreseeable future there is little hope of seeing such service quality increase (speed) beyond the major cities.

So far, however, our interpretation, and the comments that I have received from my American colleagues, raises very serious concerns, and represents a massive setback for the deployment of broadband in regional and rural America.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Much anticipated broadband economic stimulus rules released

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration's much anticipated regulations governing disbursement of $7.2 billion allocated for broadband telecommunications infrastructure in the federal economic stimulus bill enacted in late February were issued today.

At 121 pages, the rules are mind numbingly complex. They're also certain to disappoint many by adopting the Federal Communications Commission's wimpy standard of broadband of just 768 Kbps downstream and 200 Kbps upstream that's inadequate to deliver even low quality video.

"RUS and NTIA favor this broadband speed threshold because it leverages the FCC’s expertise, utilizes an established standard, facilitates the use of many currently common broadband applications (e.g., web browsing, VOIP, and one-way video), allows for consideration of cost-effective solutions for difficult-to-serve areas, and is the most technology-neutral option because it encompasses all major wired and wireless technologies," the two agencies explain in an appendix to the rules. "For these same reasons, RUS and NTIA decline to impose a latency requirement or technology-specific definitions."

That's quite a step down from the speeds Congress contemplated in a January draft version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as minimally defining wireline broadband of at least 5 Mbs download and 1 Mbs uploads and 45 Mbs on the downside and 20 Mbs up for "advanced" wireline broadband. Wireless providers would have had to provide connectivity of 3 Mbs down and 1 Mbs up under the draft legislation that set off howls of protest from both incumbent wireline providers as well as wireless broadband providers complaining those standards were simply too tough to meet. The good news is the RUS and NTIA will give bonus points to projects that will offer higher speeds and an upgrade path to them. And point demerits are given for high latency.

The rules also define another controversial aspect of where the funds will go: areas considered unserved for broadband and underserved. The former is defined as one or more contiguous census blocks where at least 90 percent of households lack access to facilities-based, terrestrial broadband service, either fixed or mobile.

Underserved gets a bit more complex. The rules define it as one or more contiguous census blocks where one or more conditions exist: 1) No more than 50 percent of the households in the proposed funded service area have access to facilities-based, terrestrial broadband service (presumably including fixed terrestrial wireless); 2) No fixed or mobile broadband service provider advertises (yes, advertises, believe it or not) broadband speeds of at least 3 Mbs down and; 3) The rate of broadband subscribership is 40 percent of households or less.

Buried deep inside the rules at page 72 is a troubling broadband black hole preservation provision. It essentially gives incumbent providers (read the telco/cable duopoly) the power to effectively veto or at least delay the award of grants and loans for broadband infrastructure projects proposed by smaller players, local governments and telecom consumer cooperatives. Proposed project areas are publicly disclosed under the regulations. If an incumbent provider doesn't like what it sees, it can file its own application and challenge the upstarts by claiming their project proposes to serve an area that's neither unserved nor underserved.

"If the information submitted by an existing service provider establishes that the applicant’s proposed funded service area is not underserved, both RUS and NTIA may reject the application," the rules state. Moreover, the rules exempt existing providers from the requirement they publicly disclose the area to be served by their projects as well as the tight application timeframe governing other proposed deployments.

The window for this first round of applications is narrow indeed: just one month between July 14 and Aug. 14 after which the bulk of the funding --$4 billion of the $7.2 billion total -- will be awarded. The balance will be disbursed in two follow on rounds of funding with all $7.2 billion due out the door by Sept. 30, 2010. That means those seeking the funds will have to act very quickly to get their applications in order and gather the large amount of information required under the highly data driven, two-step application process.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Maryland local governments team up for broadband stimulus funding

Several Maryland local government entities are pooling their efforts to get "shovel ready" to get dibs on about $100 million of the $7.2 billion earmarked for broadband telecommunications infrastructure buildout in the federal economic stimulus package, the Baltimore Sun reports:

One team, the One Maryland Broadband Plan, has been working at this for over a year. It includes Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, Howard, Anne Arundel, Prince George's and Montgomery counties, plus Baltimore City and Annapolis

Another group of rural counties covering the Eastern Shore, Southern and Western Maryland is also preparing to apply for money through the Salisbury-based Maryland Broadband Co-operative, a private nonprofit created three years ago by the Maryland General Assembly and funded by state and federal funds.

"I personally feel we're one of the few states in the country shovel-ready," said Patrick Mitchell, the co-op's president and CEO, who said he hopes for 250 miles of cable in rural areas where companies like Verizon are loath to go.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Feds should prioritize broadband stimulus funding for local telecom cooperatives

Google's got a spot on solution to remedy the existing flawed and incomplete U.S. telecommunications infrastructure model that cannot deliver advanced communication services over much of the so-called "last mile." Decades ago, local property owners built their own telecom cooperatives when basic phone service -- like high speed Internet today -- wasn't available to them, notes Google policy analyst Derek Slater in this April 30 Gizmodo video. They can now adopt the same concept to bring fiber to their neighborhoods, he says. Slater's presentation follows on a white paper he co-authored Homes with Tails What If You Could Own Your Internet Connection that was issued last November.

The federal agencies responsible for disbursing $7.2 in economic stimulus funding to build advanced telecommunications infrastructure should give telecom cooperatives and other local entities funding priority to help make this a reality. America's telecom future isn't with the failed top down strategies of the past. The way to go is bottom up empowerment of communities that have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide for years. Policymakers should also adopt Google's call for state and federal tax income tax credits to provide incentive for homeowners to invest in their own fiber connections.