USDA www.usda.gov has just funded three rural telecommunications infrastructure projects for $3.5 million to improve broadband service in portions of three states in rural Arkansas, Iowa, and New Mexico.
- Southwest Arkansas Telephone www.swat.coop will receive a $25 million loan to upgrade portions of a fiber network and convert the remaining portions of a copper system to fiber to improve service.
- Mescalero Apache Telecom www.matisp.net in New Mexico will receive a $5.4 million loan to upgrade portions of the system and will provide fiber service to about 50 percent of its territory
- Iowa’s Minburn Communications www.minburncomm.com will receive a $4.7 million loan to upgrade its copper network to fiber, and to provide subscribers with voice, broadband, and video service
As recently announced, the President has formed the Broadband Opportunity Council to be chaired by USDA Secretary Vilsack and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. The Council will report back to the President within 150 days with the steps that each agency should take to advance broadband goals.
The goals of the Council are to:
- Engage with industry and other stakeholders to understand ways that the government can better support the needs of communities seeking broadband investment
- Identify regulatory barriers unduly impeding broadband deployment or competition
- Survey and report back on existing programs that currently support or could be modified to support broadband competition, deployment, or adoption
- Take all necessary actions to remove barriers, and realign existing programs to increase broadband competition, deployment, and adoption
In addition, to deal specifically with future spectrum needs, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) www.ntia.doc.gov within the Department of Commerce will continue to work with federal agencies and the FCC to identify additional bands to be made available or shared with commercial users.
In 2015, NTIA will evaluate the feasibility of increased sharing for unlicensed devices in the 5 GHz band and work with the FCC and other federal agencies to enable innovative spectrum sharing approaches in the 3.5 GHz band.
NTIA also just announced that they will be releasing the second phase of previously-awarded grants by the State and Local Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP) www.ntia.doc.gov/ category/state-and-local-implementation-grant-program. This funding will enable states and territories to begin collecting data necessary to plan for the nationwide public safety broadband network being developed by the First Responder Network Authority or referred to as FirstNet.
The second phase of grant funding for $58 million will enable states to collect data identifying and prioritizing where public safety broadband coverage is needed, identify potential users and their capacity needs, and detail current providers and procurement mechanisms.