The federal stimulus program overshadowed private sector funding for new broadband infrastructure for more than a year. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) threatened to wash out broadband venture opportunities with billions of dollars of grants and loans. Some projects will absorb federal money instead of private risk capital. Most won't and the surviving opportunities will become evident over the next few months.


Price points, service benchmarks and likelihood
to buy are key data for revenue projectionsLocal agencies and economic development organizations still have the job of attracting that investment. Instead of telling tales of dire need, they'll be back to the business of encouraging business by documenting unmet demand and offering the right incentives to tip decisions in their direction. I'll have more to say about sweetening the pot later. The first job is to refocus on demand.

Need and demand are two very different things. Need is a general concept, and leans heavily on qualitative judgments. It's a useful basis for public policy discussions, and marketers can use it to target services and products. Raw need, though, is not very helpful in making a core business case.

Demand is a precisely defined, quantitative, microeconomic metric. It's usually the one big missing piece when service providers, and their investors, are evaluating a network build outside of their existing footprint.

Demographics, geography and existing infrastructure are important too, but the first two are freely available and most people who are active in the broadband investment space have a good enough idea of what's already out there. The state broadband mapping projects funded by the federal stimulus program are likely to be game changers, and that makes it even better.

A good demand study, with estimates of take rates over a range of services and price points, leads to supportable revenue projections. When it comes to attracting an investor, a statistically valid and methodologically sound revenue projection is gold. It's a lot easier to persuade someone to invest in a project that promises revenue. Investors aren't interested in much else.

Going forward, public broadband funding will follow private capital. The two big remaining pots of public money belong to state universal service programs such as the California Advanced Services Fund and RUS, both of which require substantial private sector co-investment, sustainable business plans that are well documented and, where RUS is concerned, the ability to take on considerable debt.

Need motivates local governments and organizations to compete for private broadband investment. They'll win when they can put demand on the table.

It's time to look past the stimulus program, and re-adjust community broadband planning assumptions. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the Rural Utilities Service's (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) encouraged local groups to roll themselves up into regional alliances and propose magnificent projects that would meet any conceivable need and serve every user imaginable.

It made sense, because that's where the money was. NTIA and RUS made some dreams real in the first round last year, and are on track to fulfill a few more fantasies in the second round. But even though BTOP is reopening for what amounts to a stunted, public-safety focused third round, the good times are over and we have to return to the old normal.

It's a world where the free money is mostly gone. Once the BTOP money is spent, NTIA goes back to being a small agency running small programs. In rural areas, RUS and state programs, like the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), will provide grants and loans to organizations with a qualifying track record and, in some cases, enough cash to fund half or more of proposed projects themselves.


 Adelstein and RUS general
 field representative Harry Hutson showed
 CETF conference attendees in Redding
 how the first round BIP money went
 down the spoutRUS won't fund projects that compete with their existing loan portfolio, however. Speaking to the California Emerging Technologies Fund's third annual Rural Connections workshop in Redding this week, RUS administrator Jonathan Adelstein made it clear that the agency will give priority to organizations that it already funds, and won't subsidize competing projects.

CASF expects it will continue to fund new broadband projects in California, but only in areas where AT&T, Verizon and the cable companies fail to upgrade infrastructure. A few arguable urban pockets aside, it's the remote rural regions that have a shot.

Elsewhere, community broadband advocates will have to go back to the basics. Tried and true economic development strategies, like public-private partnerships, tax breaks and other incentives, and old fashioned salesmanship, will be effective. But only where public agencies and community advocates can present a focused and well documented business case and be flexible enough to accept that private capital comes with its own priorities.

The old normal is a world where subscriber metrics, return on investment and anchor tenants trump grand visions, sad stories and political grease. Painstaking determination and hard work count again, though. That's a world worth calling home.

Download the Oakland Wireless Feasibility Study

Like nearly every government agency in California, the City of Oakland was faced with increasing demand for public services and a decreasing budget. An evaluation was needed of the potential for wireless technology to make municipal staff more efficient and allow them to stay in the field longer, and to provide Internet service to residents, either directly in their homes and businesses or indirectly through community anchor institutions. This evaluation needed to focus specifically on Oakland's diverse population, needs and terrain.

The City's goals were:

• Enhance economic development by enabling businesses to operate more effectively and by making Oakland a more attractive place to live, work, and visit.
• Improve public safety by putting more police officers, fire fighters, inspectors and public works staff into the field, keeping them there longer and letting them work more efficiently.
• Increase the effectiveness of public, private, and nonprofit organizations through improved access to state of the art broadband wireless technology.
• Help overcome the digital divide.
• Improve the quality of life for all Oaklanders.

Tellus Venture Associates was brought in to do a comprehensive feasibility study that would include public focus groups, workshops and a town hall meeting, close coordination with City departments and outside agencies, and a technical survey that included radio frequency modeling over the hills, canyons, flatlands and waterways within the city limits.


When we analysed the research data, the trends that emerged tracked closely with the best practices we've developed during seven years of municipal and community broadband experience. The result was a more refined list of those principles:

1. No matter what the manufacturer says, the laws of physics still apply. No matter what the special interests say, sound business principles still apply. Don't underestimate the public's appreciation of physics and sound business principles, or overestimate its regard for manufacturers and special interests.
2. City-owned and operated metropolitan area networks are a cost effective means of extending information technology infrastructure and resources to local government facilities and employees.
3. Providing broadband connectivity to targeted community anchor institutions can be financially and technically feasible for cities, and is supported by public opinion.
4. Providing universal, consumer-grade wireless Interet access is not financially or technically feasible for cities, and is not supported by public opinion.
5. Cities can better promote digital inclusion by enabling and supporting a competitive broadband environment.
6. Widespread public awareness and support precedes deployment of a successful municipal broadband system.
7. Fiber optic and wireless technologies can be effective choices for network backbone segments, depending on capital and operating cost, timing, right-of-way, capacity and other considerations.
8. Fiber optic and other landline technologies provide orders of magnitude more bandwidth and many more years of useful service life, with lower operating costs.
9. Wireless technologies can be deployed faster and at much lower capital expense, and provide greater flexibility to change network topologies and service models to meet future needs.
10. Wireless technologies have the unique ability to support municipal staff in the field, particularly public safety personnel, but should only be deployed after an independent evaluation of technology, terrain and available spectrum.

With these principles in mind, we assessed the Oakland public's needs and priorities, designed a reference architecture that could meet those needs, and developed a business model that quantified the benefits, demonstrated the value proposition and identified the money to pay for it all.



Our findings were:

• A point-to-point wireless broadband system serving specific community and institutional needs is financially and technically sustainable for the City of Oakland.
• The cost of building and operating such a system can be met through identifiable cost savings, efficiency gains and budgetary choices based on the economic value of the benefits produced.
• Public Internet access by way of community anchor institutions is financially and technically feasible, and universally supported by a diverse range of Oakland residents, organizations, agencies and businesses if it is implemented in a fiscally sound manner.
• Enabling entrepreneurial opportunities for local businesses on a pay-as-you-go, public-private partnership basis is also backed by Oakland stakeholders and supported by the financial and technical analysis conducted for this study.
• Providing wireless Internet service to residences or individual consumers is not financially sustainable or technically feasible for the City of Oakland, and is opposed by nearly all stakeholders, who cite the widespread technical and financial failure of such systems in other cities.

The next step was to secure the funding. Some of it came from the cost savings created by replacing a large number of low capacity, leased land lines with a comprehensive wireless backbone, comprised of high capacity point-to-point links using licensed spectrum. Some of it came from money budgeted for expensive cellular data service. In other cases, savings in man-hours and increased productivity, including more and better field audits by tax officers, offset operating costs.



Finding the money to pay for the capital expense was a different problem. Bonds were not an option, given the uncertainty of future budgets. Some of the funding could be raised locally, through public-private partnerships, but not all of it.

Fortunately, the conclusion of the study coincided with the establishment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the federal economic stimulus program, which included $7.2 billion for broadband projects. With its emphasis on public safety, community anchor institutions and economic development, the broadband infrastructure plan created by Tellus Venture Associates for the City of Oakland was ideally suited to meet the program's requirements.

The stimulus grant application had to wait until the second round of funding, because the first round emphasized rural projects and all but excluded urban areas from eligibility for broadband infrastructure funding. At the same time Google announced its own broadband grant program, which likewise tracked with the best practices we incorporated into the study. Both applications are now pending.

The final step will be to move ahead with construction of the system. Tellus Venture Associates prepared a draft Request for Proposal, which sets out the specifications for a municipal broadband system that would serve the City of Oakland. In some cases, such as providing broadband connectivity to public safety personnel in the field, the technology that would be employed is necessarily wireless. But in other cases, for example the core network backbone, wireless, fiber optic or other technologies are all possibilities. Those determinations, as well as any decision to release an RFP, will be made by City staff, once funding is secured.

Oakland Wireless Feasibility Study

Printable, high resolution version

City of Oakland staff report

Study presentation to Oakland City Council

City of Oakland wireless reference architecture

Oakland townhall meeting presentation

More than a thousand first round hopefuls are still staring into the black hole that swallowed their applications. The second round notifications of funding availability (NOFAs) issued by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for the broadband stimulus program do not explicitly address the status of first round applications.

The stimulus bill gave RUS $2.5 billion and NTIA $4.7 billion for broadband project funding. In the first round, RUS said it would give out up to $2.4 billion. Now its saying it'll give out a total $2.2 billion in the second round. The target budget is:

Category	Second Round
Last mile projects	$1.7 billion
Middle mile projects	$300 million
Satellite projects	$100 million
Libraries, tech assist	$5 million
Reserve	$95 million
Total	$2.2 billion

That leaves $300 million, which presumably goes to first round grants and, presumably, overhead. So far, RUS has only announced $54 million in first round grants. It still has first round applications in the due diligence stage of review, so any applicant that's made it that far has a plausible hope of winning funding. The lion's share of RUS's money is shifting to the second round, so if you haven't heard back about first round review yet, I suggest you start thinking about round two.

Unless you also put in a joint bid to NTIA. Including broadband mapping grants, NTIA allocated nearly $2 billion to first round projects. It's allocating a total of $2.6 billion for the second round:

Category	Total Targeted	First Round	Second Round
Infrastructure	$3.55 billion	$1.2 billion	$2.35 billion
Public computer centers	$200 million	$50 million	$150 million
Sustainable adoption	$250 million	$150 million	$100 million
Mapping	$350 million	$350 million	-0-
Reserve	$200 million	$200 million	-0-
Total	$4.55 billion	$1.95 billion	$2.6 billion

The two NTIA rounds match up pretty closely with the targeted totals. There's $150 million unaccounted for, but that's a believable overhead number for a federal operation.

The inference is that the two rounds will be processed, considered and funded separately. As it lays out now, if you have a first round NTIA application that's disappeared into the process, it's possible that you might yet advance to the due diligence stage. But that possibility diminishes as time goes on, particularly if NTIA sticks to its end-of-February target for closing out the first round and its 30-day due diligence period.

The second round workshops start next week, and more information should be available by then. My advice to first round applicants who haven't heard from NTIA yet is to spend this week beginning to form the community alliances that it advocates so enthusiastically. It won't be wasted effort, even if you slide into the first round under the wire.

Anna Gomez, deputy assistant secretary for communications and information at NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), spoke at today's Tech Policy Summit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.


 Secretary Gomez speaks to reporters
 at 2010 Consumer Electronics ShowShe repeated previous agency comments about wanting to "get it done fast, get it done right and with the greatest effect possible."

She described the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) as "unprecedented" at the NTIA.

Lessons learned in a difficult first round would be applied in the second round. Among those lessons is a better understanding of what sort of projects should take priority for BTOP funding.

Her comments regarding the program's time line were:

• The notice of funding availability (NOFA) for the second round will be released in a "few weeks". She wouldn't say if that means the previous target of mid-January would slip, although she left room for thinking it will.
• The first round grants will be completed "on a rolling basis over the next two months."
• All grants will be made by Congress' mandated deadline of 30 September 2010.
• In separate comments, Karen Jackson from the Commonwealth of Virginia's Technology Office, confirmed that there will be at least a 60 day window for second round applications, rather than the original 45 day deadline in the first round.

I spoke with Secretary Gomez afterward about some of the nuances of the application review time line and progress to date. She couldn't provide much else in the way of details, although the inference was that the first review stage for the first round BTOP (broadband technology opportunities program) applications is still ongoing, and that not all of the projects that will advance to the second, due diligence stage of review have been selected.

She did say "our goal is to make sure people know their status in time to file in the second round." Asked whether first round applicants could be in the position of having to simultaneously prepare a second round application and follow up on a first round application, she said "hopefully not."

Connecting the dots, here's my take:

• The second round NOFA will be released around the end of January, maybe even as late as the first or second week of February.
• If a first round application hasn't advanced to the second stage of review by the end of the month, it won't.
• The second round NOFA will be more specific about program goals, be structured to encourage cooperation amongst applicants, and favor projects that include significant, shared middle mile infrastructure, with or without last mile facilities.
• NTIA has a much better understanding now of how to run the program and what its goals should be. Don't be surprised if the first round falls significantly short of its $4 billion target, with unspent funds redirected to specific program goals in the second round.

Secretary Gomez also announced a new program, available at match.broadbandusa.gov, called Broadband Match. It's an online tool that is supposed to "facilitate partnerships among prospective applicants for a grant." She said the idea is to further NTIA head Larry Strickling's goal for the next round of favoring public/private partnerships that take a "comprehensive view" of communities.

She said that they want to ensure that key community members - meaning anchor institutions and government agencies - can access middle mile projects directly and that private companies can make use of it to create last mile services that reach consumers and businesses.

The emphasis in the second round will clearly be on middle mile projects. Gomez spotlighted the grant made to such a project in Georgia last month as an excellent example of what they'll be looking for in the second round. The objective of the Broadband Match program is to ensure that public/private groups "can put together the most comprehensive application possible."

The feds today announced they were giving $182.7 million of broadband stimulus money to 18 projects scattered across the U.S. (but nothing so far for California). 18 projects funded out of 2,200 applications, representing less than 3% of the $7.2 billion allocated.

Not much detail but a few worrisome hints.

The infrastructure grants announced today all appear to be for RUS/BIP-type projects. Even the ones that were funded through NTIA/BTOP. That's consistent with what we heard back in September: a select few RUS projects were fastracked into the second stage of review.

RUS is going down a familiar path – giving money to rural clients. Unlike NTIA, RUS has the staff and experience to do this work, they didn't have to start from scratch. Even so, it took four months to process a handful of grants.

From the Associated Press:

The administration plans to award a total of $2 billion in grants and loans on a rolling basis over the next 75 days as it starts doling out the first round of stimulus funding for broadband.

Nice, but the first round was supposed to total $4 billion. Are they cutting the first round in half? Dragging it out past the end of February? Or did someone get the number wrong? Let's hope it's a typo. $2 billion is about what RUS was supposed to give out. Maybe they're only referring to NTIA. Or maybe only RUS has its act sufficiently together to get anything done in the next two or three months.

From StimulatingBroadband.com:

NTIA head Lawrence Strickling "yesterday stated that "300 to 400" project applications for broadband stimulus funding are now being reviewed...in the due diligence phase."

What's not clear is whether the other 1,800 or 1,900 applications are still in the queue, or have been rejected. If 1,800 apps are still sitting in someone's in-box, we're in for a long wait. If some or all have already been rejected, we need to know.

NTIA and RUS also just posted the comments they received regarding Round 2. It's a lot of reading.

This process might take a lot longer than anyone ever thought.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved a $4,975,009 grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) on Friday, 20 November 2009. The grant pays for 10% of the approximately $50 million fiber optic trunk line network planned for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties on California's central coast.

CCBC system map
CCBC's CASF and associated federal stimulus grant applications are managed by Tellus Venture Associates, which also does the financial planning and budgeting for the project. In August, the CCBC submitted a proposal for a $40 million grant to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the Rural Utility Service's (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program. The remaining $5 million has already been committed by consortium members.

CPUC's approval follows endorsements by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and congressman Sam Farr, who represents the three county region. NTIA and RUS are reviewing the grant proposal, with a decision expected next month.

The project would create a 428 mile fiber optic backbone linking unserved and underserved areas to better served communities, and connecting the entire region to Tier 1 Internet facilities in Silicon Valley. Using a loop architecture, any point on the network would have two independent paths to any other point, and to the Internet.

Current plans are for the system to be operated by a cooperative, which will offer access on a wholesale basis to last-mile Internet service providers and major institutional customers.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff have signed off on a 428 mile fiber optic trunk project for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties on California's Central Coast. These approvals make it more likely that the project will receive federal stimulus money through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

The Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC) applied for grants to the CPUC's California Advanced Services Fund and BTOP in August. In round numbers, CCBC asked for $40 million from NTIA and $5 million from the CPUC, with the remaining $5 million coming from local agencies and organizations.

BTOP grants only fund 80% of proposed projects. A special law passed by the California legislature in August allows the CPUC to contribute 10%, if proposals also meet state funding requirements for unserved and underserved areas. CPUC staff reviewed the CCBC proposal, determining that it is a qualified and viable project and recommending that the commission approve it at its next meeting on 20 November 2009. Matching funds for other California broadband stimulus projects will also be considered then.

NTIA sent all 176 California requests to the governor's office for review. The governor endorsed 64, of which 30 were for broadband infrastructure projects (the remainder were public computer center and "sustainable broadband adoption" proposals). The next step is for NTIA to determine if the CCBC application meets its initial screening criteria and is eligible to move to the second, more intensive due diligence stage of review. That decision is expected within the next couple of weeks.

Tellus Venture Associates did the financial planning for the CCBC project, creating plans and budgets for the construction and operational phases, preparing the required financial documents for NTIA and the CPUC and developing sources for matching requirements and other funding needs. Tellus Venture Associates also managed the application process for the CCBC, identified and documented eligible service areas and, along with the City of Watsonville, Blue Pacific Computer, the Monterey County Business Council and other CCBC members, did the necessary economic and demographic analysis to support the application.

California State University, Monterey Bay was the lead agency for the application, filing it on behalf of the CCBC. CSUMB's Wireless Education and Technology Center is the host organization for the CCBC, playing the central role in creating, organizing and shepherding this community based initiative.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) put on a great show in San Francisco on Friday. Hosted by Commissioner Rachelle Chong, and featuring State of California CIO Teri Takai, Susan Walters from the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), and several very well prepared staffers, the workshop covered the essential details you need to know in order to apply for NTIA's BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) grants or RUS's BIP (Broadband Initiatives Program) money, and to have a hope of getting matching funds from either CPUC via the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) or CETF.

The presentations and audience questions shed some light – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not – on what's going on behind the scenes as the mad scramble to file applications by the 14 August 2009 deadline continues. The presentations, handouts and other items of interest are posted on my website.

Here's how I see it...

BIP Loans and Grants
The Rural Utilities Service is out in front by furlong, before they've even hit the first turn. RUS has more than 70 years of experience milking Washington on behalf of its clients and it shows. It's going nearly all in on this round, offering $2.4 billion now and leaving only $300 million for future rounds. That way, the rural carriers it supports can come back for NTIA money in the second and third rounds. And its written its rules to favor the good old boys. Existing recipients of RUS pork get explicit priority for funding, and the grantmaking criteria – which look impenetrable to the uninitiated – are as familiar as a dead armadillo to those in the know.

BTOP Broadband Infrastructure Grants
If you're a regional telephone company, you live and breath the detailed documentation required to submit an application. Broadband availability and subscribership levels down to the census block level? No problem, we have a junior analyst keeping our database warm just in case someone asks. Plans certified by a professional engineer? Financials done to GAAP standards? Long list of people we won't fire, I'm sorry, of jobs created or preserved? No worries, it's already posted on our web site. And so it goes.

For well prepared community broadband proposals – projects that are well along the pipeline – there's a glimmer of hope. Everyone else, get in line and expect to stay there, even if you've kept your project under the $1 million threshold because you thought it meant an easier ride. $1.2 billion is on the table this round. Here's how I see the applications shaking out:

• Rock solid proposals, written almost as if they knew in advance what the questions would be: 500 to 1,000, mostly incumbent telcos and big MSOs (okay, in innovative coalitions and public/private partnerships with blah blah blah).
• Arguably complete applications that might or might not withstand several rounds of reviews, including a 30 day challenge period when the telcos can rip them to shreds: maybe 2,000 applications, covering a mixed bag of CLECs, cable companies, cities, middle mile providers and eternally optimistic entrepreneurs.
• Hail Mary requests for $999,000 written by the summer intern: 5,000 requests from middle managers who want the boss to think they did it by working through lunch hour. Caveat: this estimate is subject to revision. There might not be 5,000 middle managers still employed in America.

Infrastructure projects funded: 100 to 150, mostly to the big telcos, with some small fry included to make it look like the fix wasn't in.

BTOP Public Computer Center Grants
Every school, community college, local government, Boys and Girls Club and Elks Lodge with a grant writer will apply for this one. Expect 10,000 or more applications for the $50 million available, with maybe 500 awarded. The bulk of the money will go towards program costs, not hardware, which means something like 1,000 jobs funded for a year or less.

BTOP Sustainable Broadband Adoption Grants
Huh? Oh, you mean you didn't know we're giving priority to projects that are allied with larger ARRA-funded stimulations? Sorry about that, but if you've scored a big health services or education grant, be sure to stop by the BTOP desk on the way out to pick up a few million for a telemedicine or distance learning add-on, after all we have $150 million that's shovel ready this round. Everyone else, well, thanks for sending in those 20,000 applications, and we apologize for not explaining what sustainable broadband adoption means. We figured it would be really funny to just let everyone guess.

Don't forget to reapply in round 2!

A story making the rounds -- and it might even be true -- is that the National Institute of Health received 15,000 applications for stimulus grants that it's administering. Of those, about 400 got funded in the first round. Based on the accelerating interest in the broadband stimulus program, it's very possible -- likely, I think -- that we'll see a similar response.

The broadband stimulus money is still sitting in the pipeline. Latest word is that NTIA will release the grant criteria on 30 June 2009, and allow a month or six weeks for applications to be prepared. Those applications would be reviewed in the September to December range, with award announcements expected by the end of the year, or shortly thereafter.

That's for the first round of three. Round two applications would be due in the October - December 2009 time frame, with reviews beginning in January 2010 and awards expected by April 2010. The last round of applications would be due in the first quarter of 2010, maybe as late as April, with awards being announced maybe by June 2010.

The RUS money might flow a little faster, but there's less of it. And then again, it might not.

Earlier, the California Emerging Technology Fund had indicated that it was ready to provide some or all of the required 20% matching funds for broadband projects, but it looks to be pulling back a bit. Latest news is that CETF will help with matching funds for broadband adoption programs, but not for broadband infrastructure construction. The California Public Utilities Commission is still a potential source for matching funds, but no guarantees there.

Following a couple weeks of meetings and conference calls with industry, government and community people, and doing some reading, the broadband portion of the stimulus package isn't looking so stimulating...

• The real fight is on now. Lobbying groups are fully engaged as the NTIA determines the scoring criteria it will use. The process will continue over the next two to three weeks. There are more hearings scheduled for Washington, plus two others next week, one in Las Vegas and one in Flagstaff. Expect wonks from all sides to parachute in, trying to tweak details and definitions to their advantage. Same story for the RUS money.
• The deck seems stacked against urban community broadband projects. The focus at this point is on two criteria, 1. job creation and 2. reaching unserved and underserved areas. In that order. Big city interests want to equate "underserved" with "unaffordable", but even if they are successful, they're pitching jobs tomorrow against jobs today.
• There are three kinds of jobs that could be created via broadband process: one-time system construction, ongoing system operations, and second order effects where the availability/affordability of broadband creates and/or preserves jobs down the road.
• The consensus within the industry is that priority will go toward construction jobs, because those will get money into peoples hands and then into the economy most quickly. I wrote about this subject earlier.
• At the state level, the expectation is that substantially all of the NTIA money will go through the states. That's probably not realistic. The broadband portion of the stimulus bill, unlike nearly all of the rest of the bill, does not require the money to flow through the states.
• Community and municipal people think that taking the state out of the funding stream means the NTIA will direct more money directly to community projects. That possibility becomes likelier if the current lobbying efforts directed at NTIA's scoring criteria are successful. But the prevailing industry view is that the reason the NTIA money doesn't necessarily flow through states is because the big incumbent carriers, like AT&T and Verizon, won the day in Congress and will be at the head of the line.
• The prevailing industry view also assumes that some money will go to community projects, if only for appearances sake. If so, cities could be in line for a bit of funding if a concrete job creation case can be made.
• The California Emerging Technology Fund has identified a substantial amount of money – more than $60 billion – that the stimulus bill directs towards broadband-related technology projects, with health-related IT projects at the top of the list. Most of that money ($55 billion? More?) will flow through the states, and CETF and the California governor's office are well positioned to claim a nice chunk. The $7.2 billion of NTIA and RUS money could slipt away from them, though.
• Everyone agrees that the process is moving quickly, that the fact that several key positions in the new administration are unfilled makes the process very difficult, and that presenting a unified message, if not speaking with one voice, is the key to being heard before the scoring criteria are set. The game could be all but over by the end of March or the beginning of April.
• The FCC is in the act as well. It's planning to come up with a national broadband strategy by the end of May. I think it's a mistake to think that it will have much influence on NTIA and RUS grant decisions. The grants, and the process of making the grants, will create jobs, or so the Obama administration thinks. The FCC process will create or save jobs -- mostly for lobbyists, lawyers and other Beltway bandits, but a job is a job, I guess. It's about jobs, not grand broadband policy or even coherent management.

The mantra so far is "fast, fast, fast". Fair enough. But everyone will want a say, then everyone will want a say regarding what everyone else said. It would be nice if the serious money actually started to flow by this Summer, or even by Fall. It would be nice. But I'm not counting on it.

Notes from the Silicon Valley Telecom Council's Policy Luncheon

The prevailing view amongst the private sector people who have been talking to contacts with the Obama team is that the lion's share of the broadband money will go to incumbent carriers. "Jobs are created through the existing structures," was how Mike Masnick put it, quoting a highly placed source in the administration.

Yesterday's Silicon Valley Telecom Council policy luncheon in Santa Clara was sponsored by AT&T, but big carriers by no means dominated the panel. Speakers represented a wide variety of sectors and areas of expertise, from both inside and outside the Beltway:

• Jon Metzler, Blue Field Strategies


• Christopher Boyer, AT&T, AVP - Internet & Technology Policy


• Danielle Coffey, Vice President, Government Affairs for the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)


• Derek Kerton, The Kerton Group & SVTC


• Mike Masnick, founder Techdirt; CEO, floor64


• Robert Rini, Partner, Rini Coran PC


• David Pejcha, Marketing Director, Silver Spring Networks

It pretty much looked like this on 12seconds.tv

With $7.2 billion specifically earmarked for broadband projects, the stimulus package is the largest U.S. government disbursement for telecom purposes ever. That's the good news. The bad news is that the panelists were 100% in agreement: the priority is job creation, not broadband build out, and incumbent carriers can create — or protect — more jobs more quickly than start up companies or community-based projects.

The audacious hope is that once the dust settles from the stimulus extravaganza, a genuine broadband and telecommunications policy, with money attached, will make its way through the administration and congress. That program, should it ever come to pass, would address how to upgrade the U.S. national broadband infrastructure and extend it to unserved areas. The stimulus package, though, is about something else.

There's a lot of detail that is still uncertain, not least who will be running the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Rural Utilities Service, the two agencies that will be ladling out the grants. But the consensus yesterday was clear: whoever is appointed will be answering directly to John Maynard Keynes.

It's not doing the great man justice to focus on a couple of his quips, but he put the awful truth very succinctly. If you hire hire a bunch of people to dig a ditch, you've stimulated the economy. If you hire more people to fill it back in, you've doubled the stimulus. It doesn't matter that nothing of value was created in the process. What is most important is that people are receiving pay packets and spending the money.

The bottom line is that the Obama administration would rather fund a project that puts a thousand people to work installing ten miles of fiber, than pay ten people to lay a thousand miles.

Of course, a thousand miles of fiber will support many thousands of jobs in the long run. But, according to yesterday's private sector expert view, the administration will be thinking about the here and now when it hands out the cash. The first, and maybe only, question for applicants will be "how many people will you hire today with this money?"

Short term thinking perhaps, but as Professor Keynes put it, "this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead."