Ambiguity muddies broadband stimulus award process

When a word has more than one meaning, it can be a problem, particularly if the word is used inconsistently by an organization that others are looking to for direction. And that’s exactly the situation that has arisen with regard to the term “middle mile” and how it has been used by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency, the agency charged with administering the majority of $7.2 billion in stimulus funds allocated for broadband.

To deliver broadband, you not only need the “last-mile” connection between the network operator and the end user, you also need to connect the network operator to the Internet. In telecom jargon, that connection between the network operator and the Internet is commonly called the “middle mile.” Broadband stimulus funds can be used for either type of project — and initially the NTIA used a definition that largely matched the telecom industry view.

In guidelines for the first round of stimulus funding, the NTIA defined “middle-mile” projects as those with “a predominant purpose other than providing broadband service to end users or to end-user devices” such as “interoffice transport, backhaul, Internet connectivity or special access.” The NTIA also said applications for middle-mile funding had to “connect at least two points without predominantly providing broadband service to the premises.”

Initially the plan was for both the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service, the broadband stimulus co-administrator, to review both types of applications. But after receiving a huge volume of applications, the agencies decided that the RUS should focus on the last mile and the NTIA should focus on the middle mile. Along the way, the NTIA started using the word “middle mile” in a different manner.

Around the beginning of the year, the agency began talking a lot about the importance of connecting “anchor institutions” such as schools, libraries and hospitals. Many people in the telecom industry had questioned whether $7.2 billion for broadband was enough, and administrators believed this approach would help make the money go as far as possible. Confusingly, the term “middle mile” started to get used as a synonym for projects connecting anchor institutions.

For example, when the second funding round was announced in mid-January, the NTIA said it would adopt a “comprehensive community” approach as its top priority, “focusing on middle-mile broadband projects that connect key community anchor institutions such as libraries, hospitals, community colleges, universities and public safety institutions.” Apparently in NTIA jargon, directly connecting an anchor institution doesn’t count as providing broadband service to end users or to the premises.

The NTIA’s Round 2 guidelines do allow both “middle-mile” and “last-mile” infrastructure as part of “comprehensive community infrastructure projects.” But what’s perplexing is that the guidelines for Round 2 came out while the NTIA was still receiving Round 1 applications — and if you look at the middle-mile projects subsequently funded in the first round, it sure looks like the agency was already working with the Round 2 definition. Check the summaries of middle-mile winners announced in Round 1 and you’ll see numerous references to projects that will “directly connect” anchor institutions.

The agency awards projects by a point system, and the Round 1 guidelines did say that projects would get points for “proposed connections to … community anchor institutions or public safety entities.” But at the time those guidelines were released, the NTIA planned to rule on both middle-mile and last-mile applications — and it would have been logical for applicants to assume that the points for connecting community anchors applied primarily to last-mile projects.

The NTIA has used confusing language about the importance of those community anchor connections in other ways, as well.

In both the Round 1 and Round 2 guidelines, connecting community anchor institutions was considered a project “benefit” but was just one of numerous ways of getting points. In Round 1, it was one “evaluation criteria” — along with the total number of potential end users that could be served, the level of need, network capacity, affordability and nondiscrimination — which combined could earn 25% of the total possible “project benefit” points upon which awards were based.

Round 2 guidelines lay out a similar scoring methodology and “evaluation criteria,” in which anchor connectivity was one of several “project benefits” that, together, were weighted at 20%. But applications are not to be scored until after they first go through a process aimed at sequencing applications for review. And that process gives priority to “middle-mile” projects that, among other things, commit to connecting community anchor institutions, community colleges and public safety entities.

The idea of connecting anchor institutions, assuming this connectivity is sustainable, could be a good way to maximize broadband stimulus funds. But despite all the Round 1 awards that promise to connect community anchor institutions, such connectivity didn’t have the emphasis in Round 1 guidelines that it does in Round 2 — and it’s not surprising that we’re starting to hear some protests about Round 1 awards. And it’s unfortunate that even the Round 2 guidelines do not articulate the NTIA’s vision as clearly as they should.