NTIA, RUS Announce $1.8 in Broadband Stimulus Awards
Only a handful of public safety agencies seeking Broadband Technology Opportunities Program funds got money to build early 700 MHz networks, as the White House unveiled $1.8 billion in awards Wednesday -- the biggest set of announcements in the history of the stimulus program. Many of the 21 governments and government groups that got waivers from the FCC to launch systems in 700 MHz spectrum had applied for BTOP funding. It’s unclear how many more public safety grants will be awarded and how many systems won’t get built without federal funding. New York City, Washington, and Boston were among grant applicants that did not get awards in Wednesday’s round.
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"After this round the Department of Commerce has about another billion dollars available for funding,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said during a call with reporters. “Within that $1 billion we still have capabilities for additional public safety grants.” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said the agency is looking at more public safety grants “as part of the remaining funding.” President Barack Obama signed a bill last week that cut $302 million from the BTOP program (CD Aug. 13 p1).
The San Francisco Area, which is well advanced compared to most other waiver recipients, got a $50.6 million award to help fund its 700 MHz network, being built by Motorola. “The project plans to serve 200 existing public safety sites and up to 50,000 public safety users in the greater San Francisco Bay Area,” said an administration announcement. “As many as 6 million people stand to benefit from this project.” The group made a filing on the status of its project at the FCC last month, but the information it filed was kept confidential by the agency.
The state of Mississippi got the largest grant -- $70 million for an interoperable wireless network statewide. Mississippi said in a filing at the FCC last month that Gov. Hailey Barbour’s Office had sought the BTOP grant, but that the state had yet to choose vendors to supply equipment and build the network. “The project plans to serve 90 hospitals and 340 ambulances and up to 9,900 public safety users throughout Mississippi” using 700 MHz spectrum, the administration said.
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina got a $16.7 million grant for a public safety network. The city filed a detailed document on the network last month at the FCC. The administration said the city will use the funds to construct 24 new wireless towers to complement six existing towers on “and bring over 11,000 public safety end users onto the system.” The Northern New Jersey Urban Area Security Initiative got a $39.7 million grant for a network that’s expected to serve 51 public safety agencies and more than 30,000 public safety users. New Mexico got a $38.7 million to deploy an interoperable wireless public safety broadband network in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe metropolitan areas. “The project plans to serve 14 sites and up to 1,500 public safety users,” the administration said.
One public safety official said the announcement was mostly good news. “To the extent that these applications get money and they're compliant with the grant conditions then this is good, it should help out,” NENA President Brian Fontes said in an interview. “The real issue, of course, is will these networks be capable of being integrated with a National Broadband Plan to provide true interoperability beyond just these waiver grant areas. I believe that is part of the FCC’s criteria in the grant of the waivers. … Hopefully, this is moving in the right direction."
"Today’s action to grant approximately $220 million to state and local public safety broadband pilot projects is an important step toward the National Broadband Plan goal of building a nationwide, interoperable public safety network,” said FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett. “The projects will help ensure that America’s first responders have access to the cutting-edge communications they need to rapidly respond and coordinate during emergencies."
These early public safety deployments will be valuable pilot projects for a nationwide public safety network, said Locke. Jared Bernstein, chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, said the key to recovery is investment, and public safety is a critically important dimension to these investments. The public safety awards will increase interoperability and improve first responders’ response times, communications at the scene of emergencies and reliable access to real-time data, he said.
The federal investments will stimulate more private sector spending, Locke said. Most Commerce Department grants are extending high-speed Internet connections from Internet backbones to communities where the private sector has been unwilling or unable to invest, he said. He noted more than 200 ISPs have already expressed interest in building out new connections from the federally funded network. Bernstein said there’s lots of private capital “sitting on the sidelines” and in many cases broadband is an example.
Meanwhile, a handful of projects in urban areas have been funded, said Strickling. “In the urban areas there is generally not as much of a need for new (infrastructure) construction” but there’s need for computer centers for people who can’t afford to have a computer in their own home, he said. That’s why most of the public computer center sustainable broadband adoption projects have an urban focus, he said.
Several satellite broadband projects in native and tribal communities were also funded, Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. He described satellite technology as a cost-effective way to address concerns in those communities.