Satellites, public safety win broadband stimulus funding

Four satellite-based projects were among the 94 broadband stimulus awards totaling $1.8 billion announced today by the Rural Utilities Service and National Telecommunications and Information Agency.

Ultimately the program will help fund satellite connectivity in areas of all 50 states that may be uneconomical to serve in any other way, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told reporters on a conference call to announce the awards. Among the satellite providers awarded funding were Spacenet, WildBlue Communications and Echostar.

In an apparent effort to boost support for the stimulus program, Jared Bernstein, chief economist to the vice president took part in the call, telling reporters that economists credit the stimulus program with reversing the unemployment rate in 2009. Although most of these awards went to public entities, Motorola won funding for a project in the San Francisco Bay area.

The stimulus program has two goals, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke told reporters on the conference call. These include putting Americans back to work to construct the new broadband networks and laying the ground work for “sustainable opportunities for growth for areas that for too long have been without the economic and social benefits of broadband,” he said.

Awards announced today included $220 million in funding for public safety networks in five states, which Bernstein said should help generate interest in and support for a nationwide public safety network.

Also among the winners were Windstream, which now has won funding for 12 out of 30 projects for which it requested funding, and Iowa Telecommunications Services. Several companies that previously won stimulus funding were repeat winners, including MCNC, ENMR, Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative and Utopian Wireless.

An application for $348 million made by Qwest for projects throughout its serving area is still pending — and according to comments made by RUS administrator Jonathan Adelstein, the company will either win all of the funding it requested or nothing. Some companies, such as TDS Telecom and Windstream, made separate applications on a state-by-state basis, but Qwest put its funding request into one single application. “We only award an entire service area applied for,” Adelstein said.