The new awards will fund 126 projects across the U.S., the USDA says
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has announced US$1.2 billion in grants and loans for 126 broadband deployment projects in 38 states and tribal areas.
The new awards, announced Wednesday, include grants for WiMax deployments, for fiber deployments and for DSL deployments. The RUS has now distributed more than $2.6 billion in broadband grants and loans through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a huge economic stimulus package passed by the U.S. Congress in early 2009.
The grants and loans will enable telemedicine and distance learning and allow farmers and ranchers to get up-to-the-minute information on weather and commodity prices, said Tom Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture. About 5 percent of all U.S. schools will benefit from broadband projects funded by his agency, he said.
"This investment will allow the United States ... to become more competitive in the global economy," Vilsack said during a press conference.
Windstream, a broadband provider based in Little Rock, Arkansas, was among the companies receiving awards. Windstream received about $66.4 million, mostly grants, for high-speed DSL, fixed wireless and other broadband projects in seven states, including Georgia, Texas and Missouri. Windstream will match the grants with $21.7 million in private funding.
The largest Windstream project is in Florida, where the company will get a $38.3 million grant from RUS, with an additional $12.7 million in private investment, to bring fixed wireless service to areas of the state. The project will bring service to about 120,000 people and 4,750 businesses, the USDA said.
The West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative will receive $123.8 million, half of it a grant and half a loan, to build a fiber network in parts of western Kentucky and Tennessee.
Another recipient is Montana Opticom, which received $64.1 million, with half being a grant and half a loan, to build a fiber-to-the-premises network in rural communities in Gallatin County, Montana. The company estimates that the project will immediately support 650 jobs, the USDA said.
The new grants and loans also support several WiMax projects. Utopian Wireless, based in Bethesda, Maryland, received about $7.9 million for 10 WiMax projects in seven states, including Alabama, Ohio and Illinois.
Crystal Automation Systems received a $26.5 million award, with $7.9 million of it in loans, to build a hybrid fiber and WiMax network in rural Michigan. The project is expected to bring broadband to more than 140,000 people and 5,000 business, the USDA said.
The RUS and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration received $7.2 billion for broadband projects in the ARRA. The two agencies have until the end of September to distribute the funds.
More info: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/04/usda-and-commerce-department-supporting-broadband-access-and-economic-opportunity-ac
Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/080410-us-agency-announces-12-billion.html?hpg1=bn
Showing posts with label broadband. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broadband. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
US debates its broadband future - BBC News - 11 June 2010
By Maggie Shiels
lans for the future of the internet in the US are "under seige" by powerful interests, warns the Federal Communications Commission.
The warning was given by Commissioner Michael Copps as the agency prepares for a vote on its plans for the development of broadband in the US.
The plan followed a court decision that the FCC had no authority to stop ISPs slowing traffic to some users
The ruling was a blow to a central tenet of the agency's broadband plan.
That plan aims to to provide every American in the country with high speed internet access by 2020.
Enshrined in the FCC plan is strong backing for so-called "net neutrality" principles. This means that all web data is treated equally and stops ISPs favouring some traffic in preference to others.
'The third way'
The court decision put a question mark over the FCC's ability to enforce these principles and put the broadband plan in legal limbo.
In response, the FCC decided to reclassify internet services from an information service to a telecommunications service. Under present rules broadband providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are lightly regulated.
Reclassification gives the Commission greater authority and it has drawn up a so-called "third way" to help assuage opponents and perhaps stave off a long legal fight.
Under this approach, the agency has said it will set aside moves to regulate rates charged by telephone and cable companies for internet services, as well as that of internet content, services, applications or electronic commerce sites.
Mr Copps warned that the proposal was not guaranteed to be approved.
"If the Commission fails to reassert its authority, then the days of the open internet will be succeeded by the age of the gatekeepers," said Commissioner Copps.
"Make no mistake about it. This is not going to be an easy fight. The big telephone and cable companies are doing everything they can to prevent the reclassification of internet access services. They have redeployed their troops at the FCC, throughout Washington and in the blogosphere."
Education
Mr Copps' comments came during a visit to Silicon Valley in which he visited Google and Apple to discuss support for the broadband plan.
As the Commission's longest serving member, Mr Copps said he wanted to publicise the issue because he was worried that telecoms and other well funded lobbying groups would drown out the voices of the ordinary citizen.
He said it needed to be more than an issue debated only in Washington among politicians and advisors.
"People need to realise that meeting the broadband challenge is something really important in their lives and for their futures," he told the BBC. "And they need to understand that a competitive nation cannot tolerate digital divides between haves and have nots."
'Rules of the road'
A week ahead of the FCC's vote on reclassification, the nation's biggest broadband providers and a number of hi-tech firms created a group to draw up voluntary guidelines in a bid to appease regulators pushing for stronger internet access rules.
The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group, formed by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Google, Intel and Microsoft, will "develop consensus on broadband network management practices or other related technical issues that can affect users' internet experience".
"This or any other voluntary effort is not a substitute for the government setting basic rules of the road for the internet, said Chris Riley, policy counsel at Free Press a Washington based advocacy group.
"Allowing industry to set its own rules is like allowing BP to regulate its drilling."
More information - US National Broadband Plan
lans for the future of the internet in the US are "under seige" by powerful interests, warns the Federal Communications Commission.
The warning was given by Commissioner Michael Copps as the agency prepares for a vote on its plans for the development of broadband in the US.
The plan followed a court decision that the FCC had no authority to stop ISPs slowing traffic to some users
The ruling was a blow to a central tenet of the agency's broadband plan.
That plan aims to to provide every American in the country with high speed internet access by 2020.
Enshrined in the FCC plan is strong backing for so-called "net neutrality" principles. This means that all web data is treated equally and stops ISPs favouring some traffic in preference to others.
'The third way'
The court decision put a question mark over the FCC's ability to enforce these principles and put the broadband plan in legal limbo.
In response, the FCC decided to reclassify internet services from an information service to a telecommunications service. Under present rules broadband providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are lightly regulated.
Reclassification gives the Commission greater authority and it has drawn up a so-called "third way" to help assuage opponents and perhaps stave off a long legal fight.
Under this approach, the agency has said it will set aside moves to regulate rates charged by telephone and cable companies for internet services, as well as that of internet content, services, applications or electronic commerce sites.
Mr Copps warned that the proposal was not guaranteed to be approved.
"If the Commission fails to reassert its authority, then the days of the open internet will be succeeded by the age of the gatekeepers," said Commissioner Copps.
"Make no mistake about it. This is not going to be an easy fight. The big telephone and cable companies are doing everything they can to prevent the reclassification of internet access services. They have redeployed their troops at the FCC, throughout Washington and in the blogosphere."
Education
Mr Copps' comments came during a visit to Silicon Valley in which he visited Google and Apple to discuss support for the broadband plan.
As the Commission's longest serving member, Mr Copps said he wanted to publicise the issue because he was worried that telecoms and other well funded lobbying groups would drown out the voices of the ordinary citizen.
He said it needed to be more than an issue debated only in Washington among politicians and advisors.
"People need to realise that meeting the broadband challenge is something really important in their lives and for their futures," he told the BBC. "And they need to understand that a competitive nation cannot tolerate digital divides between haves and have nots."
'Rules of the road'
A week ahead of the FCC's vote on reclassification, the nation's biggest broadband providers and a number of hi-tech firms created a group to draw up voluntary guidelines in a bid to appease regulators pushing for stronger internet access rules.
The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group, formed by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Google, Intel and Microsoft, will "develop consensus on broadband network management practices or other related technical issues that can affect users' internet experience".
"This or any other voluntary effort is not a substitute for the government setting basic rules of the road for the internet, said Chris Riley, policy counsel at Free Press a Washington based advocacy group.
"Allowing industry to set its own rules is like allowing BP to regulate its drilling."
More information - US National Broadband Plan
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tech groups push to get broadband to older U.S. residents - ComputerWorld - 6 Apr 2010
By Grant Gross
IDG News Service - Broadband offers many benefits for older U.S. residents, including telemedicine, increased contact with family and friends, and shopping without leaving the house, but they subscribe to the service at a much lower rate than other people, some advocates for the elderly said Tuesday.
In an effort to change that trend, several technology vendors and groups that work with older people on Tuesday launched Project GOAL (Get Older Adults Online), an organization that plans to serve as a clearinghouse for programs and resources. Project GOAL will work with organizations working with the aging population to stress the benefits of broadband and to connect older adults with services such as computer training, said Debra Berlyn, executive director of Project GOAL.
Project GOAL will also sponsor a series of forums to discuss issues related to delivering broadband to older people, Berlyn said.
Older people need technology training programs, they need assistance with online safety, and they need to be shown the benefits of broadband, Berlyn said during a press conference. "Many people don't see the value of the Internet," she said.
Older people can use broadband to shop during bad weather, research medical conditions and use telemedicine services, said Thomas Kamber, executive director of Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), based in New York City. One critical issue that broadband can help older adults with is social isolation, he added.
"So many seniors are very socially isolated and don't have as many face-to-face contacts as they would like to every day," he said. "Technology opens up this amazing channel to connect people across geographies. One of our participants is telling me that he's e-mailing people he went to high school with in West Virginia."
Many OATs participants also use broadband to look for part-time work, said Kamber, who will serve on Project GOAL's advisory committee. "We're finding so many people who want to stay engaged in the workforce," he said. "Many people are working past the age of 60 now, either because they need the money or they want to stay relevant."
Only about 35% of U.S. residents over age 65 subscribe to broadband, compared to about 65% of the population as a whole, said Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Initiative, the group that put together the agency's national broadband plan. That digital divide grows larger for older U.S. residents who are members of racial or ethnic minorities -- only 21% of them have broadband service, Levin said.
The FCC's broadband plan proposes a national Digital Literacy Corps to help older people and other groups learn about broadband and computers, but the government alone won't be able to bring broadband to underserved groups, Levin said.
"If the federal government tries to tackle barriers to adoption on its own, it will fail," Levin said. "We must instead draw upon the power of community groups, private companies and government altogether. We must crowd-source adoption."
Among the sponsors of Project GOAL are AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.
Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174899/Tech_groups_push_to_get_broadband_to_older_U.S._residents
Official website: http://theprojectgoal.org/
IDG News Service - Broadband offers many benefits for older U.S. residents, including telemedicine, increased contact with family and friends, and shopping without leaving the house, but they subscribe to the service at a much lower rate than other people, some advocates for the elderly said Tuesday.
In an effort to change that trend, several technology vendors and groups that work with older people on Tuesday launched Project GOAL (Get Older Adults Online), an organization that plans to serve as a clearinghouse for programs and resources. Project GOAL will work with organizations working with the aging population to stress the benefits of broadband and to connect older adults with services such as computer training, said Debra Berlyn, executive director of Project GOAL.
Project GOAL will also sponsor a series of forums to discuss issues related to delivering broadband to older people, Berlyn said.
Older people need technology training programs, they need assistance with online safety, and they need to be shown the benefits of broadband, Berlyn said during a press conference. "Many people don't see the value of the Internet," she said.
Older people can use broadband to shop during bad weather, research medical conditions and use telemedicine services, said Thomas Kamber, executive director of Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), based in New York City. One critical issue that broadband can help older adults with is social isolation, he added.
"So many seniors are very socially isolated and don't have as many face-to-face contacts as they would like to every day," he said. "Technology opens up this amazing channel to connect people across geographies. One of our participants is telling me that he's e-mailing people he went to high school with in West Virginia."
Many OATs participants also use broadband to look for part-time work, said Kamber, who will serve on Project GOAL's advisory committee. "We're finding so many people who want to stay engaged in the workforce," he said. "Many people are working past the age of 60 now, either because they need the money or they want to stay relevant."
Only about 35% of U.S. residents over age 65 subscribe to broadband, compared to about 65% of the population as a whole, said Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Initiative, the group that put together the agency's national broadband plan. That digital divide grows larger for older U.S. residents who are members of racial or ethnic minorities -- only 21% of them have broadband service, Levin said.
The FCC's broadband plan proposes a national Digital Literacy Corps to help older people and other groups learn about broadband and computers, but the government alone won't be able to bring broadband to underserved groups, Levin said.
"If the federal government tries to tackle barriers to adoption on its own, it will fail," Levin said. "We must instead draw upon the power of community groups, private companies and government altogether. We must crowd-source adoption."
Among the sponsors of Project GOAL are AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.
Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174899/Tech_groups_push_to_get_broadband_to_older_U.S._residents
Official website: http://theprojectgoal.org/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)