WASHINGTON, March 8, 2010 – The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on Monday urged the Treasury Department to clarify the tax implications for the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

NARUC criticized the Commerce Department and the Agriculture Department for failing to clarify whether Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program grants, Broadband Infrastructure Program grants, and broadband mapping grants are taxable.

WASHINGTON, February 13, 2010 – The snowstorm that shut much of Washington down this past week will not change the due date for Round 2 broadband stimulus applications, nor will it delay the naming of Round 1 winners, federal officials said Friday.

Speaking at a “Broadband Stimulus Town Hall Workshop Webcast,” National Telecommunications and Information Administration Senior Advisor Angela Simpson assured the panelists that the Commerce Department does not believe that the March 15 due date for Round 2 stimulus applications is in jeopardy.

Rural Utilities Service Deputy Administrator Jessica Zufolo said that the agency has dedicated $300 million in Round 1 awards, and is on target for its end-of-February deadline for making awards public.

GERMANTOWN, Md., January 31, 2010 – Two of the biggest challenges facing the expansion of wireless broadband in this country include the disparate number of rural and remaote wireless carriers, and how to ensure that stimulus funding goes to wireless carriers.

The Wireless Internet Service Provider Directory lists 1,860 WISPs in the U.S., while another directory includes over 2,500. Notwithstanding, there exist numerous other WISPs that are simply not contained in these directories.

WASHINGTON, January 20, 2010 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Wednesday continued its rolling award of broadband stimulus grants, doling out $63 million for four broadband grants in Massachusetts, Michigan and North Carolina.

With the announcements, the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Service have awarded $253 million in broadband stimulus grants, or about 3.5 percent of the total broadband stimulus funds. The money has been spent on 23 projects so far, or an average of $11 million per grant.

The largest winners in Tuesday’s announcements were the Merit Network in Michigan, which won $33 million; and MCNC in North Carolina, which won $28.2 million. Both were for infrastructure grants to build fiber-optic networks within their states, connecting households and anchor institutions to broadband facilities.

WASHINGTON, December 16, 2009 – The U.S. is committed to an inter-agency process for combating piracy of American intellectual property, Vice President Joseph Biden said Tuesday during a press availability with top law enforcement officials.

Appearing at the White House complex with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the directors of the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, and the United States Secret Service, as well as the chief executives of the nation’s largest entertainment companies.

The meeting was followed by a closed-door, roundtable discussion on international intellectual property theft.

WASHINGTON, November 18, 2009 – In a report to Congress, the NTIA said Wednesday that it won’t conclude doling out the first round of broadband stimulus funding until February 2010.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration clarified in its third quarterly progress report to Congress this week that it will be dolling out the entirety of the grant money during the next ten months.

The year 2010 is going to be a busy time for the period for both the NTIA and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities is the other agency, the two government entities charged with distributing $7.2 billion of federal funding.

October 20, 2009 – The states of Illinois and Kansas on Tuesday released their recommendations for the first round of broadband stimulus funding, with Illinois winnowing 140 applicants for broadband projects to a list of 31 proposed projects, and Kansas narrowing its pool of 85 applicants to 22.

WASHINGTON, October 11, 2009 – Current measures of broadband comparisons between the United States and the rest of the world – and within the country – have limitations, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office released on Friday. These limitations including the “lack of comprehensive measures from the government to compare price, actual delivered speeds, and service reliability data from providers,” and information that was gathered through international broadband comparisons that are not comparable across countries.

WASHINGTON, July 6, 2009 – The structure of the federal government broadband stimulus program finally began to take shape last week, as the NTIA and the RUS released regulations laying the framework for the way that many billions of dollars of funds will be spent.

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2009 – By June 30, the NTIA intends to hire an outside contractor to help administer its broadband grants program, release rules for $4.7 billion in grants, and issue two separate notices of funds availability.