NTIA May Weigh In on Pole Attachment Issues, Official Says
The NTIA may be willing to help its state and local grant recipients lobby the FCC on critical matters such as pole attachments, NTIA Chief of Staff Tom Power said Thursday at the NATOA conference in Washington. The NTIA’s statutory charter gives it the right to help formulate White House telecom policy and the agency might be “willing to follow up on our grantees’ interests,” he said.
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Power was responding to a question from a woman in Howard County, Md., which is sharing in a $115 million Broadband Technology Opportunities grant. The woman said the county is running into problems with FCC regulations on pole attachments and asked Power whether NTIA would get involved in lobbying the commission for a declaratory order. Speaking after his panel, Power said he hadn’t promised that the NTIA will take the action. “I don’t know if we will,” he said. “The fact that it’s important to our grantees is a factor.”
Power said Congress adjourned without appropriating new money for the BTOP grant program, which is entering a crucial stage. “It ain’t over. We have a lot of work to do” monitoring grantees and making sure the process goes smoothly. “There are ways of allocating funds,” he said. “Everything is moving forward,” but “in the era of continuing resolutions, you're always a little more conservative.”
Susan Crawford, who advised President Barack Obama on telecom during the presidential transition, said she hopes NATOA members will help spread the word about the importance of broadband development. She said Obama has been diverted by the economic crises and the healthcare debate, but with a little more than two years before he stands for re-election, it’s an excellent time to get him refocused on a national broadband policy. “There needs to be an outer campaign that’s really visible,” Crawford said.