NTIA, RUS Aim to Streamline Broadband Funding

Combining the second and third rounds “will get the funds out the door faster to stimulate the economy and create jobs,” RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said. “It gives applicants and communities a greater opportunity to come together to form networks and find more creative ways to connect to the global economy through broadband.”

NTIA and RUS now aim to make the funding process “more ‘applicant friendly’ from beginning to end,” Adelstein said. The agencies “are listening to applicants, reviewing applications received, and all indications suggest a need to revisit the application process.” Parties “will have the opportunity to provide us with well-informed feedback on how the first round worked for applicants, the agencies will be able to make improvements to the process, and potential applicants will gain more time to form partnerships and create stronger project proposals,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said. “Ultimately, this approach can help us run the programs with increased efficiency and produce better results for the American public.”

But former RUS administrator Hilda Legg cautioned that responding to all concerns could amount to a “massive rewrite” of the program, which may not be in the agencies’ interest. A Wiley Rein consultant who oversaw the RUS’s first broadband program, Legg said she was surprised at the number of specific and detailed questions asked by the agencies. The agencies said they seek to simplify the program, but some of the questions add layers of complexity, she said. Applicants spent a lot of time learning the original rules, so a major overhaul could cause problems, Legg said.

Successful.com analyst Craig Settles said he too was taken aback by the agencies’ responsiveness to concerns. NTIA and RUS really seem to be listening to the complaints of those interested, he said. In particular, Settles was surprised that the request for information (RFI) acknowledged upfront so many of the application forms’ weaknesses, particularly that they seemed to be written for telephone companies and not government bodies, public-private partnerships or nonprofits, he said. Openness had been another big concern, especially regarding incumbent carriers’ challenges to applications, Settles said.

The RFI provides a “check list” of major concerns that the agencies heard during the first funding round, said Dow Lohnes attorney J.G. Harrington. He said he wasn’t surprised, however, because the agencies’ first information request was similarly thorough. The document provides insights into the agencies’ responses to the first round, he said. NTIA and RUS’s questions about whether to aim money at middle-mile projects connecting public anchor institutions may indicate that the agencies didn’t receive many applications for projects to do that in the first round and want to encourage them for round two, he said.

The agencies’ combining the last rounds was logical and not surprising, observers said. Merging them makes sense, considering that the demand for first-round money was seven times the supply, Legg said. Doing only one more round also gives the agencies “breathing room,” since the stimulus law required them to finish funding by Sept. 30, said Harrington.

In the RFI, NTIA and RUS tentatively concluded that the application process should be streamlined. “Some stakeholders, especially applicants completing the broadband infrastructure application, stated during the first round application process that completing the initial application was overly burdensome based on the questions asked and the number of attachments required,” they said. The agencies asked which attachments they should eliminate, whether they should change the two-step review and whether they should reconsider requiring infrastructure-project applicants to file one application when applying to both agencies for money.

NTIA and RUS said they're considering ways to make the funding process more open. They tentatively concluded that applications’ executive summary should be made public in the second round. They sought ways to refine the public notice process for challenges to applications for funding in incumbent carriers’ service areas. On reviewing applications, the agencies asked about the effectiveness of using at least three independent reviewers at the NTIA. They also asked whether the NTIA should continue using volunteer reviewers.

NTIA and RUS also sought comment on several policy issues, including how they should target the rest of the money. The agencies asked whether they should concentrate second-round funding on middle-mile facilities connecting public anchor institutions, regional projects that link to a broader economic development plan or targeted populations such as tribal lands. The agencies asked for feedback on changing definitions in the programs, including “unserved,” “underserved,” “broadband” and “remote area.”

The agencies said “a number of applicants have suggested that the definitions of unserved and underserved are unclear and overly restrictive; that they kept many worthy projects, particularly those in urban areas, from being eligible for support; that there was insufficient time to conduct the surveys or market analyses needed to determine the status of a particular census block area; and that they discouraged applicants from leveraging private investment for infrastructure projects.” Some of those involved criticized speed thresholds identified for the broadband definition, the agencies said.

Responding to alarm bells in Congress, the agencies asked whether they should revise the definition of “remote area.” The first-round definition was an unserved rural area at least 50 miles from an area that isn’t rural. “Many believed it was overly restrictive, thereby eliminating too many areas that were not 50 miles or more from a non-rural area but were nonetheless a fair distance away and unserved.” The agencies also said they would take another look at the program’s nondiscrimination and interconnection requirements -- but major changes shouldn’t be expected.