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Commerce Secretary Raimondo Emphasizes Affordability, Fiber in Infrastructure Bill Press Briefing

Raimondo said to expect relatively quick turnaround on broadband affordability and job creation, longer timeline on fiber buildouts.

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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo

WASHINGTON, November 11, 2021 – At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo emphasized broadband affordability and fiber infrastructure when speaking about the $65 billion in broadband funds allocated in the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, which passed the House Friday night.

While a chunk of the money will be at the discretion of the states, which will determine the kinds technology for their region, Raimondo mentioned fiber several times during the conference. She noted that “laying fiber across America” will “take time” – specifying that burying the cable in difficult topography like mountains could take years – but it will also be “creating jobs at every step of the way.”

Raimondo, who’s press conference represented another victory lap for the administration since the passage of the measure on Friday night, gave an idea of what her department expects to see from the bill, which had already passed the Senate in August and is now on President Joe Biden‘s desk for signing: a relatively quick turnaround on broadband affordability and job creation, but a longer timeline for fiber buildouts.

Experts that Broadband Breakfast has hosted have largely agreed about the importance of fiber, but some have also suggested that fixed-wireless and other technologies, like low earth orbit satellites, will be important to fill any leftover, hard-to-reach areas.

She said her department has been “planning for months” to tackle the bill. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the Commerce Department, will receive some $42 billion of the broadband money to distribute.

“It will not be easy. This will be technically difficult,” Raimondo said, according to a transcript. “It’s an implementation challenge. But it is necessary. It is necessary.”

Each state will receive a base $100 million, Raimondo confirmed, with the remaining money allocated “based on need, based on how many underserved households there are in that state.” She said the department will be working closely with, and using the maps of, the Federal Communications Commission to ensure the money doesn’t go to overbuilding. (The FCC is currently going through an overhaul of the mapping system that led to the agency revisiting the outcome of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund reverse auction.)

She also said there will be a “tremendous amount of federal oversight and transparency” on state use of the money, saying the department will have “very strict criteria to make sure that we achieve the goals of affordability and access.” It is expected that state implementation of the funds will begin “well into next year.”

The department, Raimondo said, has been speaking with governors, mayors and tribal leaders about implementing the plan, suggesting it will “significantly ramp up that engagement” now that the bill is official. The bill will also ask each state to provide the government with a plan for implementation of new internet infrastructure to ensure all residents can receive high-speed internet.

The bill will offer grants to states for broadband data analysis and mapping, low-cost broadband in multifamily residential buildings and other broadband expansion efforts.

Impact on jobs

Raimondo said it was crucial for the bill to have money for workforce training, as some have urged Congress to come up with a plan to address underskilled labor when it comes to broadband expansion.

“Today, we don’t have enough trained people. No, we don’t,” Raimondo said in response to a press question. “But some of this money will be used for workforce training so that we can train folks and, in the process of doing that, diversify, you know, the ranks of electricians and technicians and folks who are, you know, deploying the fiber in America.”

The Commerce Secretary later said that, “I promise you this: A year from now, many, many people will be working in high-quality jobs because of this package.”

Reporter T.J. York received his degree in political science from the University of Southern California. He has experience working for elected officials and in campaign research. He is interested in the effects of politics in the tech sector.

Funding

Treasury Department and Local Officials Tout American Rescue Plan Funds

Federal funding program prepares communities for economic turmoil.

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Photo of Jacob Leibenluft of the U.S. Department of the Treasury

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2023 – American Rescue Plan Act funds sets the United States ahead in economic resiliency, said experts at a Brookings Institution event Thursday. 

When ARPA was passed in March of 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury was tasked with ensuring that funds would be used to build sustainable programs past the 2026 expenditure deadline as well as programs that would build capacity for future government programs, said Jacob Leibenluft of the Treasury.  

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, states did not have the systems in place to reach people in need of help, said Leibenluft. ARPA funds help communities invest in a strong system to provide support to community members, which sets the United States ahead of where it would have been otherwise, he said, claiming that the funds will help the country weather upcoming economic turmoil. 

To take advantage of this opportunity, Leibenluft suggested that localities develop and share best practices. The most effective way to use ARPA funds is to develop the “plumbing” that connects citizens to government programs which localities can then maintain on their own budgets, he said. 

“There are certain things that are just not sustainable in the absence of ARPA funds,” he continued, “what we have built is really a demonstration of programs that can be sustained through a combination of local, state and federal funds.” 

Local governments need to view ARPA as one-time spending, added Tishara Jones, mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri. Saint Louis did not develop any ARPA-reliant programs that would extend beyond the 2026 expenditure deadline. Instead, the city is finding revenue in its existing budget for supporting new programs on its own. 

Even so, state officials suggest that the Treasury’s 2026 expenditure deadline is too soon, claiming that not all funds necessary for broadband infrastructure upgrades will be received by that time.  

The American Rescue Plan gave $1.9 trillion for direct financial assistance, education support, health programs, transportation, and state and local fiscal recovery. An estimated 10% of funds are being used to build infrastructure, including broadband deployment, according to Brookings. The program’s allocation phase is set to be complete by the end of 2024.  

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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.

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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.

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Funding

Treasury Feels Obligated to Inform Federal Agencies about Capital Projects Fund Projects Locations

Department of Treasury is working to provide guidance for providers on how to grow their business.

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Photo of the Treasury Department building in Washington.

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2023 – The Treasury Department is focusing on keeping afloat other federal agencies about completed broadband builds using its Capital Projects Fund to ensure federal money is not wasted, according to the program’s director on Wednesday.

Joseph Wender said on a Fiber for Breakfast web event that the department requires recipients of money from the fund to provide the coordinates of “every location that’s been served.

“Because we do feel an obligation to our federal partners, particularly the [Federal Communications Commission] and the [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] to ensure that our federally funded locations are fit into the larger map,” Wender added.

“We need to have a global awareness of where all of our funds are,” he added. “That is a reporting requirement that we take very seriously.”

The FCC released its first version of the broadband map in November and subsequently opened up a second round of data collection on January 3.

Since then there have been challenges sent to the agency on the accuracy of the map, including where areas are reported to have builds but don’t.

The map will be used by the NTIA’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program to deliver $42.5 billion to the states by June 30.

Industry associations and experts have requested that the FCC map add more information, including up-to-date information on where other federal and state funds are being allocated.

In January, experts agreed at an event that the federal funds should be better tracked in order to maximize its benefits.

“Money goes out from the government in broadband stimulus, but we don’t track where it’s going very well,” said Sarah Oh Lam, senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, a federal funded research and development center. “We really don’t know outcomes…and I don’t see many efforts in mandating that we collect data from this [stimulus] round from the grantees that receive money.

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