RUS Will More than Double Round Two BIP Awards
The Rural Utilities Service is anticipating that investment for round two of the Broadband Initiatives Program “is going to be more than double what we invested in the first round,” Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said at the Broadband Breakfast. The agency planned to have three rounds, but “folded the second and third rounds into the second one.” Adjusting the “remote” definition, increasing the grant component and other changes in the eligibility process encouraged more applications, he said. Most of the awards will be announced in July and August, he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
While stimulus funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act are important, “it’s just not enough to connect 100 percent of America’s households to the Internet,” Adelstein said. Issues with infrastructure and affordability contribute to the gap between rural and non-rural adoption, he said. “One in ten rural non-adopters say they can’t get broadband where they live.” In non-rural America, “68 percent of households choose to get broadband, while only half of people in rural areas choose to subscribe.” There are fewer computers and lower incomes, which makes the affordability barrier bigger, he said.
Adelstein said he’s confident that a lot of rural households will be included in the FCC’s goal of delivering download speeds of 100 Mbps to 100 million households. “Rural areas need every bit as much broadband and as robust of an offering in terms of bandwidth as urban areas.” In terms of telemedicine, “it can be the difference between life and death,” he said. “Having jerky broadband that doesn’t flow smoothly isn’t going to do the trick."
"We'd like to see 100 Mbps in rural America also, but you've got to start where that’s possible,” Rural Cellular Association President Steve Berry said during a panel. He said the initial target of 4 Mbps is a good starting point. There is some worry surrounding Universal Service Fund reform that may discourage investment, he said. “Creating a two-tiered operation where we have the competitive eligible telecom carriers phased out after five years and the eligible telecom carriers phased out over 10 years creates a lot of uncertainty,” he said.
Although Windstream has benefited from USF support, “we have approximately 10 percent of our access lines that are left where we haven’t been able to deploy broadband simply because there’s not a business case for that deployment,” said Jennie Chandra, director of government affairs. “It’s critical for us to see significant USF reform or some other form of government funding … to be able to reach those remaining customers in our network.”