On behalf of the New America Foundation et al. (NAF et al.) we are pleased to submit to these comments regarding the Broadband Initiatives Program of the Rural Utilities Service, Department of Agriculture, and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce. New America Foundation commends RUS and NTIA for their successful interagency implementation of the broadband-related programs of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009. Through your extensive outreach and applicant support efforts, you have inspired much needed public discourse and are well on the way to spurring job creation and stimulating long-term economic growth and opportunity.
We offer the below recommendations for ways to improve the application and award process by emphasizing national and societal gain over the gain of individual applicants. NAF et al. offers the following recommendations to encourage comprehensive, collaborative projects, scalable middle mile deployments, and smaller, innovative projects. NAF et al. recommends RUS/NTIA establish greater transparency, enhance the public's ability to learn from the program, and further promote public participation at all levels. BTOP/BIP grants should target organizations and facilities with established community connections. We must revisit the definition of terms in the NOFA in order to reflect more accurately the current needs of proposed service areas.
In response to RUS and NTIA's Joint Request for Information, we offer the following recommendations:
- Use a single application for all of the three funding opportunities in BTOP.
- Maintain the current unified application for BIP and BTOP; however applicants should be able to select which of the programs will best fulfill the vision of the applicant projects.
- Make the entire application public and available online.
- Add specific features to the Application Database on www.broadbandusa.govto improve functionality and enhance public engagement.
- Target workshops to specific disadvantage populations.
- Engage in proactive efforts to facilitate collaboration among potential applicants.
- Permit experts to review applications even if they consulted on other applications, so long as the applications they are asked to review are in different states.
- Prioritize Middle Mile ‘‘Comprehensive Community’’ projects with three stipulations:
1. Define service to community anchor institutions as “middle-mile” to exempt infrastructure investment to anchor institutions from geographic service stipulations,
2. Maintain strong open access and interconnection requirements to ensure infrastructure can be utilized to facilitate connectivity in the rest of the community; and,
3. Create a comprehensive understanding of “anchor institution” to refer to any facility that houses a public computer center or provides a vital public or community service.
- Allocate a portion of the remaining funds available under the BIP and BTOP programs to promote a regional economic development approach to broadband deployment.
- Target regions with high unemployment rates for funding, though alternative measures of labor underutilization as a more accurate metric of economic hardship.
- Revise the program to target funding for projects in Native America and work directly with Native American groups and tribal governments to encourage projects in persistently unserved tribal areas.
- Establish a Tribal Priority for those Tribal Entities seeking to serve their own Tribal lands.
- Set aside $50 million for a small grants program consistent with the goals of BTOP.
- Support a diverse range of public computer centers.
- Promote more activity in the use of digital media production and education in computer centers and as an adoption strategy.
- Clarify that “advertised speeds” means “guaranteed speeds” to individual premises, simultaneously and during peak network congestion times, for purposes of both the definition of “underserved” and the latter stages of the review process in which carriers may demonstrate their speeds in the areas proposed for service.
- Eliminate the requirement that projects to community anchor institutions have to be in “unserved” or “underserved” areas.
- Treat all five purposes provided in ARRA as equally important.
- Waive or amend the requirement for census block data such that communities can demonstrate that they meet the definition for “underserved” in other ways, such as statistically-significant data, that are more feasible, less burdensome, and just as rigorous. Alternatively, the FCC should require that all providers make these data publicly available.
- Make public the content of all service area challenges and require challengers demonstrate that currently available broadband is based on actual speeds that are independently verifiable.
- Permit applicants to respond to any challenges.
- Maintain the requirement that any network funded under the BTOP be open and nondiscriminatory and interconnect with other networks.
- Ensure the non-discrimination and interconnection requirements on infrastructure funded from BIP/BTOP continue with the sale or transfer of the infrastructure.
- Require that a portion of proceeds from a sale or transfer of infrastructure or equipment initially funded by BIP/BTOP funds be used to create a “Digital Excellence Fund” to allow for funding of further projects.
- Support a best practice model for project budgets.
- Clarify eligible costs in respect to OMB cost principles
- Do not permit States to rank projects for consideration. If States are allowed to prioritize, require of a point of contact for each State and make all rankings to NTIA and RUS public. Require tribal government approval of projects on Native lands.
