Connect with us

Expert Opinion

Getting Started on an NTIA Broadband Stimulus Application

LAKE FOREST, Ill., August 10, 2009 – Here’s a step by step guide to completing an National Telecommunications and Information Administration application in a bid to receive money for broadband projects. The guts of the application will consist of one or two page narratives in the following areas: project proposal, project benefits and innovation, awareness campaign, impact evaluation, technical strategy, project timeline, budget and budget narrative.

Published

on

Editor’s Note: The following guest commentary appears by special invitation of BroadbandCensus.com. BroadbandCensus.com does not necessary endorse the views in the commentary, but invites officials, experts and individuals interested in the state of broadband to offer commentaries of their own. To offer a commentary, please e-mail commentary@broadbandcensus.com. Not all commentaries may be published.

The staff of BroadbandCensus.com has produced a four-page report on the essentials of the Broadband Initiative Program-Broadband Technology Opportunities Program Notice of Funds Availability, which is available for purchase for $25.00, at http://broadbandcensus.com/special-reports.

By Don Samuelson, Guest Commentary, BroadbandCensus.com

LAKE FOREST, Ill., August 10, 2009 – Here’s a step by step guide to completing an National Telecommunications and Information Administration application in a bid to receive money for broadband projects.

The deadline for the first round of NTIA broadband submissions is August 14.  The first step is going to Broadband USA and clicking on the application link: http://broadbandusa.sc.egov.usda.gov/download_app.htm

You’ll find 47 topics, many of them essentially administrative.  However, the guts of the application will consist of one or two page narratives in the following areas:

  • Project Proposal: Problem, Solution and Outcomes
  • Project Benefits and Innovation: New Subscribers/Cost Per Subscriber
  • Awareness Campaign: Identifying and Capturing the Market
  • Impact Evaluation: What Real Differences Have Been Made
  • Technical Strategy and Organizational Capacity
  • Project Timeline and Challenges
  • The Budget and Budget Narrative

The evaluation scoring will be: Project Purpose (30%), Project Benefits (25%), Project Viability (25%) and Project Budget and Sustainability (20%).  The purpose of this short paper is to help Public Housing Authorities get started in thinking how they might develop a winning proposal that advances overall agency objectives.

Project Purpose

NTIA’s objective in providing adoption grants is to move vulnerable populations across the digital divide, to create new – and permanent – users of the Internet.  The assumption is that once public and Housing and Urban Development housing families and seniors experience the benefits of broadband and the Internet they will be motivated to be self-sufficient and shoulder more of the burden of their own well-being.  Costs can be reduced.  Access to services can be increased.  The overall quality of life will be improved.

An applicant will have to paint a “before” and “after” scenario.  Here is a description of the current status of computers, Internet access and use/adoption in the individual units.   The assumption is that the percentages will be very low.  Here is the intervention strategy to promote greater interest and use.  These are the projections of use adoption and use at the end of the intervention.  The percentages should be high. This data can be collected by surveys and performance updates.

But a key word is “sustainable.”  The use and adoption must continue.  Equally important, the use has to be paid for.  The major problem with the Housing and Urban Development Neighborhood Networks program was that while more than a thousand computer training centers were created under the program, there was no permanent funding to pay for program needs: instruction, maintenance, broadband connectivity and software and hardware upgrades.

It would be smart to think of this new program in terms of teaching residents to fish rather than being a permanent source of fish.  The use by seniors of the CTC in the building should be an initial step on the path to a permanent life on the Internet.  In two years the CTC can be shut down, all of the seniors will have computers and Internet in their units and a sustainable adoption will have been achieved.

Innovation

The innovation in the proposal is in using the on-site CTC as a collection point and launching pad, not as a permanent function.  It may well be that new applications and group discussions can take place in the CTC.  But the residents will have crossed the digital divide and the collaborations and life-long learning efforts of the future can take place in the individual units and not in the CTC.

The future I’ve postulated will need computers and Internet connections for all residents, not just for the limited number of devices in the CTC, connected by a wireless Local Area Network.  Where will they come from?  Ideally, the computers in the units should be refurbished computers and “thin clients.” The advantage of thin clients (or refurbished computers converted to think clients) is that they are inexpensive to buy and inexpensive to maintain. There are not many things to go wrong.  It can be a “plug and play” device. Donated and refurbished computers can count as the local “match” at NTIA.  The NTIA grant can fully subsidize Internet connections for a year, and at a 50 percent rate the second year.  The initial computers/thin clients can be paid for by NTIA.  The “sustainability” can be achieved by having residents fully pay for their Internet connection in year three along with upgrades, new computers and peripherals. The goal of the program is not to support on-site CTCs. The goal of the program is to use on-site CTCs for marketing the benefits of broadband and the Internet, and to prompt residents to cross the digital divide.

The Awareness Campaign

A short one-page survey should be the first step in the awareness campaign.  The survey should be oriented to current conditions (computer, dial-up or broadband Internet access, etc.), the current interests of the residents and their thoughts on how they intend to use broadband access.  The results of the survey will inform the basis for small focus-group meetings, to identify local Internet advocates/leaders and to build an outreach corps.  Inviting residents to illustrate their Internet activities on an electronic white board before larger groups of residents could demonstrate practical uses by peers.  It would be helpful to send e-mail to the children, grandchildren and friends of the residents to explain the Internet adoption program and to request support.  Once relevant content is developed and accessible over the Internet, a Web site can be developed to promote communications and collaborations among residents, and can provide access to the program to seniors on the building waiting list, and neighborhood seniors.

Impact Evaluation

Progress can be tracked throughout the entire two year program.  The survey will provide the base-line information.  Periodic interim reports can be generated related to: (1) filling out the survey; (2) participation in focus groups; (3) attendance at training sessions; and (4) the successful completion of training modules — not unlike the various progressions in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.  But thc key measurements will relate to the acquisition and use of a free computer and Internet access in the unit. Even more important will be the percentage of residents who will pay for Internet connectivity after the subsidy period is ended and the residents who will pay themselves for connectivity, hardware upgrades and software.  Other important measurements will relate to the uses made of the Internet connection and the amount of time spent on the Internet.

Technical Strategy

The on-site CTC should function like a 21st century classroom, with desktop terminals, a teacher’s station, an electronic whiteboard, a broadband connection and electronic curricula.  The CTC should have a color printer and other peripherals essential to the educational/training functions of the CTC.  It would be helpful to have webcasting capability in the CTC so that instructional programs. panel discussions and illustrations of resident work could be “broadcast” throughout the building creating virtual meetings for all of the building residents.  The all-building virtual meeting developed for Internet/computer training purposes can be used for many other uses as well.

How do we find affordable computers or thin clients for all of the building residents? First, the free refurnished computers or thin clients are “awarded” to residents who complete successfully a training course in the CTC.  So they are rolled out over a period of time.  Second, there is a ready pool of discarded computers everywhere in the United States – at least for the time being – resulting from the upgrading of personal computers in corporations, law and accounting firms and government.  The refurbishing process is relatively simple, easily done by middle and high-school students with little oversight.

The question remains how the broadband connectivity is distributed throughout the building – normally by a combination of hardwiring to the heavy Internet users (management office, CTC, maintenance office, etc.) on the main floor and wireless distributions throughout the building. This solution will have to be developed out of the specific circumstances of each location and the overall needs of the adoption program.

Project Timeline

Assuming that grant is awarded on October 1 and all of the detailed planning is done after you have survived the first cut, the first step will be surveys, focus groups and the “pre-selling” of the program. The second step will involve the preparation of the training curriculum, the program website and the recruitment of the site director.  A good start on this can be done before the actual award is made.  The whole system should be operational by the holidays and the first two four-week training program should have been completed.   The whole program can be completed in 2010. The whole program is three months of planning, three months of start-up and a year of operation.

Project Challenges

The biggest challenge will be to plan and implement the outreach in terms of generating benefits that are practical value to seniors, and to gently overcome the natural resistance to try something new.   This will have to be a fun learning experience, not unlike races for little kids, where everyone can feel good about their progress because it is advancing them along a path they have concluded will have value. The second challenge will be to find a program manager/instructor who has the collection of diverse training skills that can make this program happen.  The third challenge is to find a local source of refurbished computers that can fit the PC or thin client needs of the program in sufficient numbers to provide a computer for every resident. The fourth challenge is to identify affordable broadband connections for the residents. The fifth challenge is to find, review and arrange for on-line curricula that is responsive to the interests of residents that can provide a core “package” of applications that meet the interests and needs of seniors.

The Budget and Budget Narrative – Program Eligible and Matching Costs

There are certain eligible program costs that can be paid for by the NTIA grant. In general, they related to computers, furniture, equipment, training, connectivity and maintenance. They are costs directly related to the development of the adoption program.  The cost of space would normally not be covered unless it was to be devoted exclusively to the function of the CTC.  Once a cost has been determined to be “eligible,” 80 percent of the program costs can be paid for by the NTIA grant, and 20 percent needs to be covered by separate matching funds.  The Budget Narrative needs to document and explain each cost element with respect to hourly rates, unit costs, projected quantities and the reasonableness of the projected cost.  The budget needs to tie in to the overall program.

Donald S. Samuelson has more than 30 years of experience in government-assisted housing and real estate development. He has a passion for applying broadband to provide solutions in the fields of education and training. E-mail him at DSSA310@aol.com, or contact him by phone at 847-420-1732.

Expert Opinion

David Strauss: How Will State Broadband Offices Score BEAD Applications?

Fiber, coax and fixed wireless network plans dependent on BEAD funding demand scrutiny.

Published

on

The author of this Expert Opinion is David Strauss, Principal and Co-Founder of Broadband Success Partners.

Given the vital ways in which access to broadband enables America, adequate Internet for all is a necessary and overdue undertaking.  To help close the digital divide, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funding for the last mile. Add to this the estimated level of subgrantee matching funds and the total last mile figure rises to $64 billon, according to the BEAD Funding Allocation and Project Award Framework from ACA Connects and Cartesian.

The federal funds will be disbursed by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to the State Broadband Offices who will then award subgrants to service providers. On June 30, each state will find out their allocation amount. By 2024, the states will establish a competitive subgrantee process to start selecting applicants and distributing funds.

A critical element of the selection process is the methodology for scoring the technical merits of each subgrantee and their proposal. Specific assessment criteria to be used by each state are not yet set. However, the subgrantee’s network must be built to meet these key performance and technical requirements:

  • Speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload
  • Latency low enough for “reasonably foreseeable, real-time interactive applications”
  • No more than 48 hours of outage a year
  • Regular conduit access points for fiber projects
  • Begin providing service within four years of subgrant date

What level of scrutiny will each state apply in evaluating the technical merits of the applicants and their plans?

Based on our conversations with a number of state broadband leaders, the answers could be as varied as the number of states. For example, some states intend to rigorously judge each applicant’s technical capability, network design and project readiness. In contrast, another state believes that a deep upfront assessment is not needed because the service provider will not receive funds until certain operational milestones are met. Upon completion, an audit of the network’s performance could be implemented.

We, at Broadband Success Partners, are a bit biased about the level of technical scrutiny we think the states should apply. Having assessed over 50 operating and planned networks for private sector clients, we appreciate the importance of a thorough technical assessment. Our network analyses, management interviews and physical inspections have yielded a valuable number of dos and don’ts. By category, below are some of the critical issues we’ve identified.

Network Planning & Design

  • Inadequate architecture, lacking needed redundancy
  • Insufficient network as-built diagrams and documentation
  • Limited available fiber with many segments lacking spares

Network Construction

  • Unprotected, single leased circuit connecting cities to network backbone
  • Limited daisy-chained bandwidth paths on backhaul network
  • Lack of aerial slack storage, increasing repair time and complexity

Network Management & Performance

  • Significant optical ground wire plant, increasing potential maintenance cost
  • Internet circuit nearing capacity
  • Insufficient IPv4 address inventory for planned growth

Equipment

  • Obsolete passive optical network equipment
  • Risky use of indoor optical network terminals in outdoor enclosures
  • Sloppy, untraceable wiring

Technical Service / Network Operations Center

  • Technical staff too lean
  • High labor rate for fiber placement
  • Insufficient NOC functionality

While the problems we uncover do not always raise to the level of a red flag, it happens often enough to justify this exercise. Our clients who invest their own capital in these networks certainly think so. The same should hold true for networks funded with taxpayer money. Fiber, coax and fixed wireless network plans dependent on BEAD funding demand serious scrutiny.

David Strauss is a Principal and Co-founder of Broadband Success Partners, the leading broadband consulting firm focused exclusively on network evaluation and technical due diligence. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

Continue Reading

Expert Opinion

Raul Katz: Can Investments in Robust Broadband Help States Limit the Downside of Recession?

If managed effectively, the BEAD program could play a key role in allowing our economy to weather the storms ahead.

Published

on

The author of this Expert Opinion is Raul Katz, President at Telecom Advisory Services LLC.

The United States economy is still undergoing persistent inflation rates, high interest rates, and stock market volatility. According to a Wall Street Journal survey conducted in January, economists put the probability of a recession at 61 percent.

Simultaneously, we are also on the eve of the largest federal broadband funding distribution in American history. All 50 U.S. states have begun formulating plans to help connect their communities through the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, and its funds are expected to be distributed within months. That, coupled with the Affordable Connectivity Program  and other initiatives designed to subsidize broadband access, will play a critical role in connecting every American to the internet. This once-in-a-generation investment in building more robust and resilient broadband networks can help states weather the coming economic storm. To learn how, we simply need to look back to March 2020.

When the COVID-19 pandemic initially cratered the economy, states that had a higher rate of fixed broadband penetration were more insulated from its disruptive effects. Simply put, better-connected states had more resilient economies according to a study I authored for Network:On. In a separate study, by using an economic growth model that accounts for the role fixed broadband plays in mitigating the societal losses resulting from the pandemic, I also found that more connected societies exhibit higher economic resiliency during a pandemic-induced disruption.

In the study conducted for Network:On, we documented that U.S. states with higher broadband adoption rates were able to counteract a larger portion of the economic losses caused by the pandemic than states with lower broadband adoption rates. The states most adversely affected by the pandemic, such as Arkansas and Mississippi, were those exhibiting lower broadband penetration rates. Conversely, states with higher broadband penetration, such as Delaware and New Jersey, were able to mitigate a large portion of losses, as connectivity levels allowed for important parts of the economy to continue functioning during lockdowns.

Nationally, if the entire U.S. had penetration figures equal to those of the more connected states during the pandemic, the GDP would have contracted only one percent— a much softer recession than the actual 2.2 percent. These findings show that investments in closing the digital divide and ensuring everyone can access a high-speed Internet connection are critical to building economic resilience.

Today, wide penetration rate disparities exist between states — such as Delaware’s rate of 91.4 percent compared to Arkansas’ rate of 39.7 percent. Because of this, public authorities should focus on creating policy frameworks that allow operators to spur infrastructure deployments and find the optimal technological mixes to deliver the highest performance to users.

Broadband access matters. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is crucial to an area’s economic health. As state broadband offices around the country prepare to deploy BEAD funding, they must remember that broadband access and adoption are imperative to building economic resiliency.

Beyond my own study, a review of the research examining the economic impact of digital technologies over the past two decades confirms that telecommunications and broadband positively impact economic growth, employment, and productivity. This reinforces how consequential these government investments in broadband infrastructure and adoption are to protecting America’s economic health.

The BEAD program still has its challenges, but if managed effectively, it could play a key role in allowing our economy to weather the storms ahead.

Dr. Raul Katz is the president at Telecom Advisory Services LLC and author of the study: The Role of Robust Broadband Infrastructure in Building Economic Resiliency During the COVID-19 Pandemic. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

Continue Reading

Expert Opinion

Kate Forscey: For the FTC to Rein in Big Tech, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Going after Big Tech with marquee cases may make headlines, but those failures make big headlines too.

Published

on

The author of this Expert Opinion is Kate Forscey, contributing fellow for the Digital Progress Institute

Recognizing the outsize power Big Tech has in the tech marketplace and throughout our daily lives, the Biden Federal Trade Commission, helmed by Chair Lina Khan, has made big headlines for pursuing cases and regulatory changes in an attempt to restore competitive balance to the tech ecosystem.

Khan started off with a bang. She, along with the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division, sought to modernize the merger guidelines that would provide better guidance for courts and scholars to challenge Big Tech’s rampant consolidation of the tech sector. Moreover, she has initiated a proceeding that will evaluate the anticompetitive effects of overly broad non-competes; some of which have the effect of entrapping valued coders and engineers into these large tech firms indefinitely, preventing smaller competitors from availing themselves to their expertise.

But rather than complete these efforts in an incremental, potentially bipartisan manner, the agency has continued to set its sights higher and higher. Let’s just say the FTC has had a tough go at implementing this strategy.

For example, as part of Facebook’s pivot to the metaverse, it planned to merge with Within Unlimited—a virtual reality fitness start-up.  Fearing a loss of “potential future competition,” the FTC just expended an enormous amount of its resources to enjoin the merger, not only going to court but starting a concurrent proceeding with one of the agency’s administrative judges. The result? A federal district court outright denied the requested injunction, and now the FTC has abandoned its administrative case too.

And it looks like the FTC is going for a repeat with its challenge to Microsoft’s merger with Activision, the maker of World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. Strangely enough, the fear here is creation of future potential competition, specifically Microsoft and Xbox gaining a foothold against its larger gaming competitors like Sony and Tencent, a Chinese multinational conglomerate.

Even more bizarrely, the agency appears to ignore that the merger would open up more competition in the mobile gaming market—largely controlled by the Apple and Google app stores—by bringing Activision titles, like Call of Duty, to every mobile device. In short, it’s looking like the FTC will be 0-for-2 by the end of the year.

Agency should take incremental steps, not tackle unwinnable battles

Look, reining in Big Tech is a laudable goal. However, it may be time for Khan to turn to tried-and-true ways to accomplish that goal with incremental, ideally bipartisan steps, instead of focusing the agency’s limited resources on unwinnable epic battles.

The first thing Khan should do is finish what’s already on the agency’s plate.

For one, Khan should complete modernizing the merger guidelines. The current guidelines were written before Big Tech was even a thing and without an understanding of today’s technology and modern markets. New guidelines would provide a stable framework for courts, academia, and the antitrust agencies to analyze anticompetitive practices in a more productive manner as cases crop up going forward.

For another, the FTC should conclude its privacy investigation of prominent social media and video streaming companies.  More than two years ago, the Commission launched an investigation into the privacy practices of nine social media and video streaming companies — including TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon.  And we have yet to see any results, even though all the tech companies mandated submissions are presumably in.

For yet another, the FTC should reexamine pending proceedings to take a more targeted approach that has a better shot of passing legal muster. Take the FTC’s proceeding to ban non-compete clauses. Whatever the general merits, it’s politically divisive, and legally questionable, to think the FTC could really ban even executives being held to a non-compete clause.

In contrast, a really bright idea would be to address Big Tech dominance by going after noncompete clauses for mid-level engineers and workers. It used to be that a talented mid-level engineer could go cut her teeth working a few years at a place like Google, getting experience there and then moving on to a start-up to help them build their company up.

This allows smaller companies to potentially compete with the big guys and ultimately create a more competitive marketplace in a given space, whether that’s search or social or whatever. But the goliath groupers don’t like that idea – Big Tech likes its dominance – so nowadays they lock employees into noncompete clauses that prevent them from any sort of outward mobility. The FTC could change that with a targeted and incremental rule—one that could be bipartisan and legally sustainable.

Going after Big Tech with marquee cases may make headlines, but those failures make big headlines too.  To do this and do this right – in a way that doesn’t create legal conundrums down the road – the Commission might want to recognize that incremental, bipartisan victories have the greatest staying power.  If you want to have a lasting impact, take it from Aesop: slow and steady wins the race.

Kate Forscey is a contributing fellow for the Digital Progress Institute and principal and founder of KRF Strategies LLC. She has served as senior technology policy advisor for Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo and policy counsel at Public Knowledge. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.

Continue Reading

Signup for Broadband Breakfast News



Broadband Breakfast Research Partner

Trending