WASHINGTON, March 1, 2010 – Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Ohio Representatives Dennis Kucinich, Zack Space and Betty Sutton – all Democrats – are scheduled to announce federal spending aimed at bridging the technological divide and increasing economic opportunities in low-income communities in Cleveland, Akron, and Zanesville, Ohio.
WASHINGTON, February 5, 2010 – The Commerce Department on Friday announced two additional broadband stimulus funding grants: $5.9 million to the South Carolina Technical College System, and $1.2 million to a consortium of Rhode Island’s 71 public libraries.
Both grants were made under the portion of funds — $50 million in the first round of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program — earmarked by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for public computing centers.
“Thanks to this funding, public computer centers and computer labs throughout the state of South Carolina will be able to serve more than twice the current number of users,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement.
WASHINGTON, January 25, 2010 – Broadband experts discussed civil rights issues surrounding a speedy internet and how best to close the digital divide at an event last week hosted by the Minority Media & Telecom Council at Howard University.
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, January 15, 2010 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Rural Utilities Service on Friday announced the availability of a second round of broadband stimulus funding, with two separate Notices of Funds Availability from the respective agencies.
WASHINGTON, January 13, 2010 – The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Tuesday announced that it has awarded grants to fund broadband mapping and planning activities in Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas under NTIA’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program.
With the grants, the NTIA has awarded 51 of the 56 applications: one for every state, plus the district of Columbia and five territories. The NTIA has spent approximately $97 million on the applications, the agency said.
WASHINGTON, January 11, 2010 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Rural Utilities Service on Thursday launched a new web site designed to foster partnerships and collaborations among broadband stimulus applicants.
The launch of the web site – http://match.broadbandusa.gov – comes at a time when the broadband community is eagerly awaiting announcement of the winners of broadband stimulus funding, and the new Notice of Funds Availability regarding the second and final round.
WASHINGTON, January 7, 2009 – The head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Monday urged the Federal Communications Commission to take steps designed to encourage greater competition in the market for high-speed internet access.
In a Monday letter to the FCC as part of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling urged that “the Internet’s innovation ecosystem is built on, and thus depends upon, a communications infrastructure operating at broadband speeds, with robust bi-directional service.”
The current level of competition is not enough to spur innovation or cause increased investment in broadband, Strickling said.
WASHINGTON, December 31, 2009 – The Commerce Department agency responsible for the mapping component of the broadband stimulus program announced, on the last day of the year, that it had funded five more states’ broadband data programs.
With the announcement – of funding for broadband data and mapping in Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, Utah and the U.S. Virgin Islands – the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has awarded 41 grants totaling $78 million.
There remain 15 awards still to be made – rounding out the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories that submitted applications and are eligible for grant funding.
WASHINGTON, December 17, 2009 – The White House announced that $182 million in federal funding for broadband stimulus funding will be dispensed Thursday by Vice President Joe Biden at Impulse Manufacturing in the rural town of Dawsonville, Ga.
The initial grants are the first of a $2 billion disbursement in broadband funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act over the next 75 days, the White House said.
The funding, said the White House, is “to bring broadband to communities that currently have little or no access to the technology.”