President to announce broadband stimulus winners today

President Obama has displayed more interest in telecom policy in the last week than he has in his entire term in office until now. Just days after offering public support for the FCC’s plan to free up 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband, today he plans to announce the first 66 winners in the second funding round of the broadband stimulus program.

But despite the lack of a public display of interest in the broadband stimulus program, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told reporters on a conference call yesterday afternoon that the White House has been working closely with agencies administering the broadband stimulus program since its inception. That collaboration had “two simple goals,” Locke said—including “put Americans back to work immediately” and helping “sustain economic growth in areas that have been without the benefits” of broadband connectivity.

When the first awards in Round 1 of the broadband stimulus program were made, Vice President Joe Biden made the announcement, which included only about a dozen awards. Round 2 is kicking off not only with an announcement from the president but with a substantially larger number of awards—66 in total, including some from the Rural Utilities Service and some made by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency.

The awards include a mixture of infrastructure awards and public computing center awards. Among the infrastructure award winners are some names that may sound familiar, not only because they are carriers serving Tier 2 and 3 markets but also because they won awards in the first round. Among the two-time winners are Rural Telephone Company and Zayo Bandwidth.

One of the largest awards will go to the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, which earlier this year proposed an ambitious network to connecting existing academic and research networks.