NTIA, RUS Will Choose Applicants with Proven Track Records
Start-up broadband companies will have a tough time getting any of the $7.2 billion in federal money for broadband stimulus, because of strict guidelines and financial background checks, panelists said late Tuesday at the Freedom to Connect conference. Applicants can expect to have to “show the last five years of financials,” said Tom Cohen, a lawyer who represents the Fiber to the Home Council. “What they want to see are real, bona fide providers.”
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Applicants should look at previous grant awards by the RUS, and state programs such as the California Broadband Task Force, to see what the government is looking for, Cohen said. The agencies will be very careful about how “that money goes out the door.”
The government’s unprecedented investment in broadband will be protected through close study of applicants’ ability to produce, the panelists said. But wise investment could mean additional funding down the line, they said. “If we make good use of these funds and we have good things to demonstrate at the end of it, there is the possibility of more,” said Sharon Gillett, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable
The stimulus money won’t help all undeserved or unserved areas, however they're defined, said Joanne Hovis, the president of Columbia Telecommunications consulting. There isn’t enough money in the program to do “any one thing,” she said. But it is a chance to do “many small things.”
Panelists said the projects that look most likely to succeed will receive money and not every project should be funded simply because the government is required to get the money out by Sept. 10. “This is not about wild experiments,” said Harold Feld, the legal director of Public Knowledge.
Other panelists said there’s more money for broadband development than the $7.2 billion because Internet will be necessary for other stimulus recipients. For instance, the $21 billion for school construction and the $48.1 billion for transportation will probably have broadband pieces, said Jim Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group.