Broadband Stimulus Notes
The FCC is asking other countries to supply broadband data to help it develop a national broadband plan. Tuesday, the FCC released letters sent earlier this month by the International Bureau to Canada, Australia, Nigeria, South Africa, Singapore, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. The commission is required by the Broadband Data Improvement Act to do an international comparison of broadband speeds and prices (CD April 21 p2). “We hope to learn from the experiences of others in meeting the shared challenge of delivering broadband to all of our citizens,” the bureau wrote. “While some national level data is available through institutions like the Organisation [for] Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), we are interested in obtaining broadband data at more granular levels -- for example, by city, county, state, province or prefecture. Similarly, we are interested in demographic and socioeconomic data at comparable unit levels.” More letters are expected to appear on the FCC’s Web site in the next few days, a commission official said, but the total is unclear. -- AB ----
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The wireless industry stands to get $6.8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act due to upgrades and new deployments in 2009 and 2010, half of which is coming from the $7.2 billion in federal broadband stimulus funds, said an ABI Research study. Wireless vendors also will get a significant amount of money from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection that will likely use stimulus funding on communications equipment and infrastructure, it said. The largest area of growth for wireless broadband equipment vendors will be in rural regions where burying cable or fiber is not economially feasible, said ABI Vice President Stan Schatt. Some vendors have already begun to trade on the prospect of industry growth, offering free grant writing and advice for receiving federal funding for their clients, he said.