FCC, NTIA Provide Broadband Updates
Tuesday is mid-term review time for the FCC's broadband team and Blair Levin and his colleagues will provide the Commission with a major status report on their plan. They have 141 days left before their deadline to send a national broadband report to Congress and there's still a lot of work to do, Levin said in a blog post. Among his deliverables are specifics on broadband speeds; spectrum and fiber resources; the increasing cost of digital exclusion; and the adequacy of tools available to promote universal broadband.
Meanwhile, National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Larry Strickling offered an update Monday on the work his agency is doing to facilitate broadband deployment through the disbursement of billions of economic stimulus dollars. He told a crowd in Charleston, W.Va., that NTIA last month received 2,200 applications requesting $28 billion in funding (seven times the amount that officials allocated for the first round of solicitations).
The first NTIA broadband grants will be announced in November and he hopes to complete the first round of awards by the end of the year. Strickling also said his team is contemplating whether to combine the projected second and third rounds of funding into one mega-round. If the rounds are combined, NTIA will release a second notice of funds available by December, with an application deadline of early 2010. The timetable should give all interested parties ample time to file, he said.
NTIA expects to start announcing grant awards as soon as this week for broadband mapping grants that will provide better information about the high-speed Internet services available to consumers in a given area. Initial funding will be limited to two years instead of the five year period announced at the program's outset, Strickling said, noting the change will permit a comprehensive review of the initiative next spring. "We want to make sure we have the most effective and cost efficient program we can," he said.
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