Broadband Headlines - 8/11/09

BROADBAND STIMULUS
Broadband, high-speed access and you (Akron Beacon Journal 8/11/09 by Knight Center’s Doug Adams)
With significant support in President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, broadband stands to be vital to our nation’s economic recovery and future prosperity. To fully understand why, it’s important to understand not just what’s in store for our nation — but also what’s in store for us as individuals. What does this new essential infrastructure and broadband access mean to you? In each scenario that follows, the technologies needed for transformation already exist, and new ultra high speed broadband network capacity would simply enable these applications to become commonplace.
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Getting Started on an NTIA Broadband Stimulus Application (BroadbandCensus.com 8/10/09)
Commentary- A step-by-step guide to completing an National Telecommunications and Information Administration application in a bid to receive money for broadband projects.
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How to Navigate Broadband Stimulus Application Hell(4G Wireless Revolution; Craig Settles 8/10/09)
Commentary - Here’s a check list of random things related to your application – but not all of them directly in the application rules – that you should consider. Find a local marketing agent, marketing director of a local business or equivalent within a government agency. Have that person review your Executive Summary as well as (for you folks chasing BTOP money) your description of the “Project Purpose” and “Enhanced Service for Health Care Delivery, Education and Children.” He or she should look at how succinctly and powerfully the first two sentences of each narrative describe and sell the main benefits your proposal will deliver.
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Wireless shows promise for stimulus money (Network World 8/10/09)
As the August 14 broadband stimulus application deadline approaches, it’s noteworthy that wireless has already played a successful role in earlier programs created to get far-flung U.S. citizens “connected.” Wireless has proven itself a sustainable model in several rural areas, potentially setting the stage for other forthcoming deployments using stimulus funds.
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Broadband Stimulus Plan Has No Map for Success (GigaOm 8/10/09)
The federal government is spending $7.2 billion over the next year to bring better broadband to the masses, a lofty goal by any measure. But the feds are making it loftier than it needs to be in that it has no idea where people without broadband live — which is like planning targeted radiation therapy for a cancer without knowing where the cancer is.
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Broadband Headlines - 8/10/09

BROADBAND NEWS

BROADBAND STIMULUS
Cover Story: Strings Attached LSmall Operators Balk at Special Conditions In Broadband Stimulus Money (Multichannel News, 8/10/09)
Whatif the government held a $7.2 billion cash giveaway and nobody came? The deadline for the initial round of funding for the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program is Aug. 14 and early indications are that small cable operators may sit out the program in fairly large numbers. As one long-time small cable-system operator who requested anonymity put it: “There are a lot of strings on that money.”
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The Smart Path to Broadband Mapping (Fighting the Next Good Fight 8/6/09)
Commentary - A strategy for getting better maps faster, and for a much more reasonable cost than the alternative, Connected Nation. Drew Clark, president of Broadband Census believes any broadband map that’s worth its pixels and the price tag has to sufficiently represent SPARC data - Speeds, Prices, Availability, Reliability and Competition. You want to start with a good map of census blocks for your area. Gather data from and about carriers in your proposed service area, keeping in mind you want as much SPARC information as you can pull. This is tedious since the largest carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner want to give you as little as possible, while the smaller ones are hard pressed to put enough people and time to the task.
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Obama plans large-scale public works project (Sun Journal 8/9/09)
President-elect Barack Obama said Saturday he wants to revive the economy through a job-creating public works plan on a scale unseen since the building program of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.As a part of the package, Obama said he wants to expand broadband Internet access in communities. “Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online,” he said. Hospitals also should be connected to each through the Internet. He said he wanted to ensure the facilities were using the latest technology and electronic medical records.
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FCC Releases Notice of Inquiry on Broadband Data Collection - Inquiry required by the Broadband Data Improvement Act (Broadcasting & Cable, 8/7/09)
The FCC Friday put out a notice of inquiry on broadband data collection with the advice to start fresh. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said decisions in his FCC would be data-driven, the other caveat being it has to be the best data available.
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NTIA Corrects Broadband Mapping Funds - Changes Tied To Details About Availability, Speed, Infrastructure (Multichannel News, 8/9/09)
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration has made some technical corrections to its notice of funds availability (NOFA) for broadband mapping that paves the way for broadband providers to give up the data. Major broadband providers and trade associations had asked NTIA for the changes, and with them “committed to helping NTIA complete the important and difficult task of mapping broadband availability.” The changes related to the level of detail required on availability, speed and infrastructure and the degree of public disclosure.
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COMMUNITY BROADBAND
First Phase of Broadband Stimulus Money Might Miss the Mark (PitchEngine.com 8/8/09)
As the August 14 deadline approaches for applications for the first of three phases of federal broadband stimulus funding, many telecom companies apparently are going for their share of money. But experts say that small businesses, organizations and communities should also aim for a share of that pie.
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We all share Internet, broadband (Bangor Daily News 8/8/09)
Commentary: Lately there have been numerous discussions and debates centered on corporate control of water and wind, and now our broadband and Internet access is being threatened by out-of-state corporations. But like water, broadband is part of the commons, a set of assets that we all share. The commons encompass three areas — natural, cultural and community. Air, water, ecosystems and the like constitute the natural commons, and our language, laws and traditions are part of the cultural commons. Community commons include the public infrastructure, such as our system of highways, roads and bridges, our right to access education and health care, along with public safety such as police and fire protection. Broadband and Internet access have become an integral part of our public communications infrastructure. They are part of the community commons.
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When Is A Community Fully Served By Broadband? (App-Rising 8/6/09)
Commentary: One of the hottest topics related to the broadband stimulus is how to define what it means for a community to be underserved. But there’s been a huge piece missing from that conversation as we have yet to address the question of: when is a community fully served by broadband? When can we say that a community has enough and doesn’t need government intervention to get more connected? 
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Broadband Headlines - 8/6/09

BROADBAND STIMULUS

Technology helps bridge rural mental health care gap, but challenges persist (Iowa Independent 8/6/09)

Agricultural populations have problems accessing health care services for a number of reasons: rural areas lack qualified health care professionals, and residents face financial constraints and even local stigmas that serve as barriers to getting treatment. These challenges are even more pronounced when residents need to access behavioral or mental health services, experts said here Monday during a conference on rural health care.

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BISC Delivers the Total Solution for States’ Broadband Mapping (YahooBusinessNews 8/6/09)

The Broadband Information Services Consortium (BISC), announced today, provides states with customized solutions to broadband mapping to address the full supply-and-demand broadband continuum. The Consortium, a collaboration of BroadMap, New America Foundation and One Economy, says that it ensures the most accurate, fully verified and up-to-date information available for broadband mapping, enabling states to more effectively compete for ARRA funds.

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Time to move broadband discussion to front burner (San Jose Mercury News 8/6/09)

Commentary - Given the seemingly infinite number of issues that President Barack Obama has tried to take on since January, the push for a national broadband policy has understandably flown well below most people’s radar. But it’s past time to give the effort to adopt a national broadband policy the focus it deserves. It’s not on par with health care reform, but putting the nation on a path to something near universal broadband adoption has the potential to be our generation’s version of building the national highway system.

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In broadband stimulus, cart races horse (Telephone Online 8/7/09)

Though the application deadline for the first round of broadband stimulus funds is the end of next week, some of the first winners are already being named. ICF International, a professional services firm, has already been awarded up to $27 million to help implement stimulus fund distribution. Others are being hired to map existing broadband coverage: ESRI, which makes geographic information system software, has been hired by the Texas Department of Agriculture, along with controversial nonprofit Connected Nation, to help map that state’s broadband availability.

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COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS / VERTICALS

Broadband Now - Healthcare

5 minutes Video broadcast about broadband in Healthcare, produced by “USTelecom, the Broadband Association.”

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Broadband Headlines - 8/5/09

BROADBAND STIMULUS
Incumbent Telcos Endangering Community-Based Broadband Stimulus Projects? (4GWirelessEvolution 8/4/09)
Commentary - It’s going to be hard moving from where broadband is today to where these stimulus grants promise to (hopefully) take us, unless communities respond vigorously to several threats to the success of this grant program. It may require 10 or 15 minutes to take a little action, but it’s worthwhile insurance to protect your investment in your grant application. There are troubling signs that incumbent telcos could end up gloating over the torpedoing of many community-beneficial broadband projects, not all of which will require any effort on incumbents’ parts.
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We Should Demand a 30-day Extension on NOFA Deadline (8/5/09)
Commentary - Think about it for a second. The main deadline for getting all that stimulus money out is September of 2010. Aug. 14 appears to be a date set more by political pressure than by what’s best for those footing the bill, and definitely those trying to make the deadline. There’s probably a run on Pepto Bismol and liquor stores all across the U.S. as people try to decipher rules, regs and applications, get their documentation in order, etc. Why not demand an extra 30 days?
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All Un/Underserved Communities Should Be Aggregating Demand (App-Rising 8/3/09)
Commentary -Every single community that considers itself unserved or underserved should be working to aggregate demand for broadband among its citizens immediately. The reasons for doing so are manifold. For one, it’s important to acknowledge that un/underserved communities likely won’t have a competitive broadband marketplace, where multiple entities operating multiple last-mile facilities compete for business. If a market hasn’t been able to support or attract a single broadband provider, then it likely won’t be able to support the deployment of multiple networks. But in order for any network to be financially sustainable, it needs sufficient demand for the services it delivers, which is why I’m advocating that all un/underserved communities start aggregating demand immediately. The best part about doing this is that it can set the stage for encourage all models of deployment.
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Broadband Is This Generation’s Highway System, FCC Chief Says (Wired 8/4/09)
“Broadband is our generation’s infrastructure challenge,” Genachowski said at a meeting of executives, doctors and health companies at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford on Monday. “It is as important as electricity and highways were for past generations.”
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O’Brien: Time to move broadband discussion to front burner Mercury News 8/5/09)
Given the seemingly infinite number of issues that President Barack Obama has tried to take on since January, the push for a national broadband policy has understandably flown well below most people’s radar. But it’s past time to give the effort to adopt a national broadband policy the focus it deserves. It’s not on par with health care reform, but putting the nation on a path to something near universal broadband adoption has the potential to be our generation’s version of building the national highway system.
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Broadband Stimulus Program Creates Complex Competitive Issues (Telecompetitor 8/4/09 )
Commentary - The $7.2 billion available through the ARRA broadband stimulus program may impact the competitive environment in interesting ways. Existing broadband carriers should not only be looking at how the funding may help their own broadband cause, but how it might empower competitors as well. Some will argue that this analysis and any action that results from it may actually stifle the intent of the program, which is to create jobs and expand broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved territories. There’s probably some truth to that, but in reality, what would you expect these free enterprise incumbent carriers to do?
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COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS
For rural hospitals, move to digitize records on federal incentive carries costs, and risks -Rural hospital hinging future on federal incentive (Blog.taranga.com 8/5/09)
Electronic medical records are a life-or-death issue at Sac-Osage Hospital — not necessarily just for the patients, but for the hospital itself.Facing a budget shortfall, the 47-bed hospital in rural western Missouri is borrowing nearly $1 million to pitch its paper medical charts and purchase a state-of-the-art electronic health records system. The hospital is hinging its survival on what it hopes will be a $3 million windfall of federal incentives for hospitals that go digital.
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Health IT Push Could Threaten Health Data Security, Experts Say (IHealth 8/5/09)
With the federal government providing billions of dollars to hospitals and physician offices that implement electronic health records and other technology that could improve efficiency and lower costs, many health officials have become concerned about the possibility of hackers stealing information from EHR systems, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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MUNICIPAL WIRELESS
The trouble with hooking up (Boston Globe 8/3/09)
Free municipal wireless sounds like a great idea for Boston or any city that has already invested heavily in high-tech infrastructure. Too bad there’s no more money to pay for the last link of the chain. Ubiquitous wireless, especially if it relies on mesh networking technology, only works if people use it. The evidence so far is that they will — if it’s free. The trouble is, Internet bandwidth isn’t free. Neither is the operation and maintenance of a citywide network. Somebody, somewhere has to pay. If not the users, or the city, then who?
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Bandwidth on the Bayou (Governing; App-Rising 8/5/09)
A look at Lafayette (LA) and its ultimately successful efforts to build its own fiber optic broadband network. As efforts proceed to improve the nation’s patchwork broadband infrastructure, most attention is focused on the $7.2 billion allocated in the federal stimulus law to bring broadband to rural and other underserved areas that still live in the dial-up world. Some of those places, unable to attract commercial providers, may find themselves with no other realistic option than to build their own networks, and they are likely to encounter many of the same hurdles that Lafayette and other communities have faced.
Read full article in Governing
Read full commentary in App-Rising

Broadband Headlines - 8/4/09

BUSINESS WEEK SPECIAL REPORT:

Telecom Companies Scramble for Funding (Business Week 8/3/09)

It’s crunch time at International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC). The Huntsville (Ala.) telecom provider has until Aug. 14 to complete an application for part of the $4 billion that Uncle Sam is spreading around to make high-speed Internet connections more widely available. To meet the deadline, IBEC Chief Executive Scott Lee has six of his 54-person staff working overtime and weekends filling out the paperwork. “It’s not an easy application. It’s a lot of work in a short period of time,” Lee says. Yet, it’s “worth the effort.”

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Rural Broadband -Expansion of high-speed Internet stimulus (Business Week 8/3/09)

Interview with Craig Settles as he talks about the challenges of handing out $7.2 billion in loans and grants from the economic stimulus bill to bring high-speed Internet to the hinterlands.

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To Spread Broadband, $7.2 Billion Isn’t Enough (Business Week 8/3/09)

The government wants to wire every U.S. household for high-speed Internet access. But the actual costs of doing so could run far higher. Many estimates say that about 40 million U.S. households may be unserved or underserved by broadband networks and that providing those homes with broadband connections will cost about $1,500 per household. That comes to $60 billion at minimum, since this math excludes the money consumers will need to spend to acquire PCs and other computer gear.

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View “World’s Fastest Broadband” Slides

Wiring Rural America: Which Technology Is Best? (Business Week 8/3/09)

Government agencies are investigating broadband technologies and the true cost of bringing high-speed Internet to the rural U.S. Reaching the most remote rural customers with high-speed Internet access can be prohibitively expensive. Consider the case of Hill Country Telephone Cooperative in Ingram, Tex. The small provider is undertaking a $57 million effort to install fiber and bring broadband service to a substantial part of its market, which covers 2,900 square miles, roughly twice the size of Rhode Island. Yet even with this effort, the provider will not be able to serve 543 remote households, about 5% of its market area, because it’s simply too expensive. To do so would involve laying 522 miles of fiber optic cable at a cost of $20 million—an average cost of $37,000 per subscriber, according to Delbert Wilson, general manager of the provider, who testified in July before the House Agriculture Committee.

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BROADBAND STIMULUS

FCC chair touts broadband as top priority (Mercury News 8/4/09)

The Federal Communications Commission’s top “strategic” priority will be to encourage greater availability and adoption of broadband Internet access, the agency’s new chairman, Julius Genachowski, said in a meeting Monday with editors and reporters at the Mercury News.

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Clearwire to launch WiMax mobile broadband in more markets (Broadband Info 8/3/09)

Clearwire today announced that it will launch its WiMax 4G mobile broadband internet service in Boise, Idaho; Bellingham, Washington; and eight markets throughout Texas on September 1, 2009. WiMax is already available in four markets - Portland, Oregon, Atlanta, Baltimore and Las Vegas.

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FCC Lines Up Participants For First Broadband Workshop (Broadcast Newsroom 8/3/09)

The FCC has lined up its participants for the first of many staff workshops on the national broadband deployment plan currently on the drafting board.There are 18 workshops planned for August and early September, designed to put staffers together with stakeholders and the public to brainstorm on the many and varied issues implicated in the plan, which must be in to Congress by Feb. 17, 2010.

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REPORTS/STUDIES

Hawkeye Poll: 40 percent of Chicagoans have little to no Web access

A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll indicates that 40 percent of Chicago residents have little to no Web access. The city-commissioned study, conducted as a partnership between the UI and the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2008, showed one in four Chicagoans are completely offline and an additional 15 percent have limited Internet access.

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Broadband Bites Cable

A new Pew study shows audience migration amid a slow economy.It might be a little early to call Hulu the next HBO, but a spike in broadband usage appears to be eating into viewers for cable television, according to the latest survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Has the recession delivered a stimulus to broadband? According to the Pew study, the business flatlined for much of 2008 but took off like a rocket in the past year, growing 15%. Job seekers, the newly idle and more people working from home may account for some of this. About 63% of Americans now have broadband at home. Meanwhile, according to Pew, 22% of adults have canceled or scaled back pricey cable TV service.

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