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EPA wants to send broadband experts to your town

25 January 2016 by Steve Blum
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Top. Men.

The Environmental Protection Agency is the latest federal agency to jump into the broadband development game. Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: there’s no money on the table.

What the EPA is offering is “a team of experts [that] will help community members develop strategies and an action plan for using planned or existing broadband service to promote smart, sustainable community development”. In other words, if you are in a small rural town and have a broadband project in mind or, better yet, one that’s already funded, the EPA – working with the U.S.… More

Federal broadband funding guide is mostly old news

3 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Click to read it for yourself.

A new booklet published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration outlining ways to finance broadband projects contains no surprises. It’s a summary of federal programs that fund, or might fund, broadband infrastructure and it’s useful as a reference. But there’s no new money on the table, and many of the programs listed are either restricted in scope – Appalachia or tribal areas, for example – or are narrowly focused on specific users, such as libraries or public housing residents.… More

Broadband projects should compete for more federal money, report recommends

22 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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Broadband gets a swing at it too.

There’s not a lot new in the recommendations released yesterday by the federal Broadband Opportunity Council, an interagency talking shop launched earlier this year as part of U.S. president Barack Obama’s community broadband initiative. But it is useful source for information about existing federal broadband programs and it at least gets some commitments, and even a few deadlines, down on paper.

The big question, of course, is where’s the money?… More

Rural means something different in California

8 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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California has been shut out of federal broadband grants for infrastructure projects in rural areas for the past several years. I was asked why don’t California’s wineries and farms throw lobbying dollars at the problem?

The wineries and farms don’t need to. California agriculture is characterised by large corporate holdings (albeit sometimes family controlled). The ag operations themselves can usually get sufficient connectivity, by building their own point to point microwave links and, occasionally, fiber connections.… More

Federal rural broadband stimulus program slammed

9 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Not much to show for $3 billion.

The federal agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service is broken, according to a long and well researched article by Tony Romm in Politico. Given $3 billion in stimulus money by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, RUS approved broadband infrastructure builds that couldn’t or wouldn’t be completed – about half of the 300 or so approved projects are still works in progress, and 42 of those never got started at all.… More

New rules for federal broadband loans in rural areas don't change eastern bias

3 August 2015 by Steve Blum
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Most of the broadband blank zones are in the west, most of the money goes east. Go figure.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is the arm of the federal agriculture department that runs broadband grant and loan programs. It’s just published new application rules for loans to build broadband infrastructure in poorly served rural areas. Highlights include…

  • The minimum acceptable broadband speed is set at 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up; any area with less than that is considered unserved by federal standards.
… More

USDA broadband grants ditch California again

27 July 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s sounding like a broken record (if anyone actually remembers what a broken record sounds like). The federal agriculture department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announces another round of Community Connect grants, for local broadband projects in poorly served or completely unserved areas, applications come in, the winners are announced and California comes up with goose eggs (anyone remember what that means either?).

That’s been the story for four years running now. RUS awarded a total of $13 million in Community Connect grants for five projects in four states: Alaska, Minnesota (which was down for two), Oklahoma and Virginia.… More

Low USDA broadband grant standards dig a deeper digital divide

29 December 2014 by Steve Blum
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Rural broadband projects have another shot at getting funding from the U.S. department of agriculture. The rural utilities service (RUS) has opened another grant application window for its Community Connect program (h/t to Tom Glegola at CPUC for the heads up).

The key eligibility parameters are…

  • The project must be in an area “where Broadband Service does not currently exist”. That’s defined as a combined – down plus up – speed of 3 Mbps. For example, if there’s service available at 1.5 Mbps up and 1.5 Mbps down, fixed or mobile, then the area isn’t eligible for a grant.
… More

California shut out of rural community broadband grants, again

23 October 2014 by Steve Blum
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Can’t see California from here.

For the third year running, the U.S. department of agriculture passed over California while handing out Community Connect grants, a program run by the Rural Utilities Service. The agency released a list of 8 relatively small broadband projects that will be getting a total of $13.7 million. None of which are in California.

It’s possible, of course, that there were no applications submitted from here. I’ve been looking around on the web to see if that info has been published anywhere, but no joy so far.… More

People matter, not paperwork, for rural broadband development

21 June 2014 by Steve Blum
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The success of broadband subsidies targeted to rural areas should be evaluated, at least in part, on the number of rural subscribers projects actually attract. That’s one of the conclusions of an investigation by the federal government accounting office into $3 billion worth of grants and loans given out by the U.S. department of agriculture’s rural utilities service as part of the 2009 stimulus program.

There were two pots of broadband stimulus money back then: the NTIA’s broadband technology opportunities program and RUS’s broadband initiatives program (BIP).… More