This is a guest post from Peter Miller, a long time community technology advocate.
Steve Ronan and I, among others, were at yesterday’s broadband application training workshop in Boston. It’s always useful to see who’s attending and get info from the folks who are giving it out, including, as the presenter at several of the sessions, Laura Breeden. Here’s some key things I learned:
- The $7.2b program, jointly administered by NTIA ($4.7b via BTOP/ the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) and the Rural Utility Service of the Dept. of Agriculture’s Broadband Initiatives Program, BIP ($2.5b) will be administered via three rounds of funding: applications for the first one are due August 14 with the online application system going live at the end of the month; awardees will be announced on November 7. Additional rounds are scheduled for the end of this year and the spring of 2010, so there is good time for planning.
- There are three BTOP grant categories each needing separate application: Infrastructure ($1.2b this first round), Public Computer Centers ($50m), and Sustainable Broadband Adoption ($150m). It is the last category that is especially interesting in contrast to the other two because it clarifies there is a separate pool of funding earmarked especially for expanding the adoption and subscribership to broadband. Multiple purpose applications will be given extra weight/ preference, so if you’re planning or thinking about a CTC (and/or infrastructure) application, do consider this supplement since it’s undoubtedly part of the work of the other categories and actually has more funding than the public computer centers.
- Collaboration with other federal stimulus programs in your geographic area gets extra credit (see recovery.gov) and it’s to be noted that states will be given a opportunity to prioritize highly rated proposals before the final selection, so it’ll be useful to know who’ll be advising your governor on this matter.
There was lots more useful info, to be sure. Workshops across the country continue through July 24.
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