Broadband stimulus: The first round

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has released a handy searchable online database of first-round broadband stimulus applications, revealing more details about the 2,200 bids it has received so far.

For example:
—Applicants proposing middle-mile projects collectively sought slightly more funds than those with broadband wireless projects (each group’s requests totaled about $9 billion), though there were only about half as many middle-mile applications as broadband wireless ones.
—There were only about half as many wireline access proposals as wireless ones, and total wireline broadband proposals collectively sought about half as much funding as wireless ones.
—A large number of the applicants were states themselves, which some have called a conflict of interest because states play a role in mapping broadband need and in evaluating stimulus applications.

The index of first-round applicants is obviously most useful to those targeting subsequent rounds. Of course, the conventional wisdom is that the first round won’t be anything like what follows, and recent comments from government officials are bearing that out. The feds are already hinting at reducing the $350 million originally allotted for broadband mapping, possibly spending a third of that before reassessing the total need. And last week the NTIA suggested that the second round could be pushed back to allow more time to make changes to the process and that the third round could even be dropped entirely. That suggests that would-be applicants looking to change the rules in their favor are already gaining influence despite the fact that the overflow of first-round applications (with requests totaling four times the available $7.2 billion) suggests little need for further enticements. 

E-mail me at ed.gubbins@penton.com.