RUS is More Flexible in Round Two

January 18th, 2010

More areas will be eligible for stimulus grants, as the RUS addresses a complaint made by several people including the influential Rick Boucher (D-VA).

The definition of broadband is 768 / 200 Kbps but there is also a definition of high speed, which is 5 Mbps symmetrical. Any area without high speed service can be underserved, which opens up a large portion of the country to grants. “RUS has determined that rural areas without service at 5 Mbps (upstream and downstream combined) lack high speed broadband service sufficient to facilitate rural economic development as required by the Recovery Act,” the notice said.

Furthermore, the language that Boucher complained about, which said that underserved areas had to be a certain number of miles from an urban area, is also not present.

Instead, the RUS now defines a rural area as “any area, as confirmed by the latest decennial census of the Bureau of the Census, which is not located within: (1) a city, town, or incorporated area that has a population of greater than 20,000 inhabitants; or (2) an urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants. For purposes of the definition of rural area, an urbanized area means a densely populated territory as defined in the latest decennial census of the Bureau of the Census.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

Broadband Stimulus Round Two Starts This Week

January 18th, 2010

Round two of the broadband stimulus was announced on Friday and will be written into the Federal Register this week. The Federal Register will be the official notice, if there are any discrepancies between what was published on Friday on the Broadband USA website and what will be published this week.

Applications are accepted from February 16, 2010 through March 15, 2010.

Round two will have only one step (not two), which sounds great, but it means that the environmental portion of the application that was not due with the initial application in round one will be due at the deadline this time.

The two organizations (the NTIA of the Commerce Department and the RUS of the Department of Agriculture) are dividing up the tasks — RUS will handle last mile applications and NTIA will handle middle mile applications.

Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

MagicJack Terminal Failure

January 8th, 2010

MagicJack support failed. Here is a chat log representing three hours of script. The real problem is that the latest software update caused terminal problems. Don’t buy MagicJack.

Tech support is useless.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

MagicJack Keeps Improving

January 7th, 2010

When I last wrote about MagicJack, I was very upset with the service. It was not working.

Imagine my surprise — and pleasure — when MagicJack called me to discuss the problem. After some back and forth, the MagicJack representative recommend that I purchase a powered USB hub. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,
Posted in Internet, Telecommunications | Comments Closed

The FCC is Naive

January 4th, 2010

I edited this screed by Bruce Kushnick: The History, Financial Commitments and Outcomes of Fiber Optic Broadband Deployment in America: 1990-2004. In it, Kushnick details all of the promises the phone companies made to state and federal governments and regulators — and then broke.

Tags:
Posted in Internet, Law | Comments Closed

Tech Savvy Vermont Grades Applications

December 17th, 2009

I don’t agree completely with the internet plan of Vermont Governor Douglas (R) but even in this advanced day, he deserves credit for having a clear and ambitious vision for the future of the internet in the state of Vermont.

It is therefore no surprise that he took the task of ranking applications to heart and provided a clear, detailed letter (here in .pdf format from the Baller Herbst website) that ranked the various applications involving the state of Vermont.

He chose Vermont CTO Tom Evslin (blog here) to head the stimulus effort of the state of Vermont — a higher profile person than that heading the stimulus effort in many much larger states. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

Texas Recommends Most Applications

December 16th, 2009

Like many large states, Texas had to examine a very large number of applications. It seems, however, that the state did as little ranking as possible, merely providing a list of applications that “were deemed to have a potentially positive impact on the state of Texas” according to the state’s letter, here (.pdf) taken from the Baller Herbst website.

No surprise that one of the state’s largest WISPs, ERF Wireless, has an approved application on the list, even though it covers several states, but I was surprised to see Hughes’ (heavily redacted) application on the list as I think that satellite can do little for anyone.

There are clearly numerous good applications in the state of Texas. Many towns filed public computer center applications, and some of the state’s universities also applied for funds.

One of the state’s other large WISPs, Internet America, submitted an application covering 35 counties that is on the state’s list.

Still, I think that the state of Texas could have done something to grade or rank the applications, instead of providing a long list of those that met some very low expectations.

Tags: ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

South Carolina Recommends Most, But Not All

December 15th, 2009

Governor Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina is not likely to be in office for round two of the stimulus, given the scandal and subsequent divorce. Still, the review process in South Carolina may be the same. The letter (.pdf) is taken from the Baller Herbst Law Group website.

The governor appears to have recommended most of the applications for the state, except (unless it’s in the letter under a different name) the Elauwit project which would provide free fixed wireless broadband to public housing for three years, and at a discount thereafter.

All four applications from CLEC FTC Divsersified Services, on the other hand, were approved. Here’s a typical one.

I was particularly surprised to see Connected Nation’s South Carolina education project recommended and to see Maryland-based satellite provider Knight Sky on the list.

Although South Carolina appears to have done less work than other states, given the circumstances, I think it’s understandable and I’m sure South Carolina will do more in round two.

Tags: ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

Pennsylvania Recommends Most of the State’s Own Applications

December 11th, 2009

I’m not saying that it’s wrong for a state to recommend its own applications, but it is unusual. Of the 13 “highly recommended” projects in the letter (available here in .pdf format from the Baller Herbst Law Group), 9 were submitted by state agencies, by univiersities, and by public libraries.

An additional 12 applications, including one from DigitalBridge, are on a list of “supported” projects.

The Executive Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Office of Administration) submitted four applications worth over $100 million. If accepted, those applications alone could use up most of the funds available for the state. I was surprised to see that two are highly recommended and one is on the supported list.

Muni-Link from CONXX is one from an ISP that I know that did not make the list.

Zito Media, a company I do not know, had one project on the highly recommended list and two on the supported list.

Overall, I think that the state’s task force should be commended for making some tough choices.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

Oregon Provides Details on Process

December 10th, 2009

The letter from the state of Oregon (available here in .pdf form from the Baller Herbst Law Group) is excellent because it provides the biographies of the state reviewers and lists both pros and cons concerning all recommended projects.

I understand that some larger states did not have time to provide the level of detail that Oregon did, but I nevertheless feel that Oregon’s letter could serve as a model to the nation on how to get it right.

I also understand that it can be politically difficult to voice any criticism concerning local applications, and I therefore believe that Oregon deserves all the more credit for describing both the upside and the downside of so many applications. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: ,
Posted in Law, Stimulus | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »