Everyone wants a piece of the broadband pie, which isn’t that big.
The problem is the federal government is treating
broadband connectivity the wrong way.
The federal government is about to begin awarding grants to provide broadband services to all who don’t have them, either because they are not available where they live or they cannot afford them. We will know in a few weeks what is meant by “broadband” – it could be services as low as 200 Kbps or it could be at the other extreme and be defined as services providing 50 Mbps or more. My guess is that it will come down to typical DSL and 3G wireless data speeds (768 Kbps up and 1-1.2 Mbps down as a minimum).
The pot is $7.2 billion. This sounds like a lot, but if you divide it evenly between the 50 states, five territories and tribal lands in the United States, the amount available to each state will be only about $150 million, and there’s not much you can do with that. However, chances are very good that it won’t be distributed evenly but rather as a series of grants. And this is where it will get very interesting. Will the grants be awarded on the merits of the projects, or will groups or organizations that hire the best proposal writers and/or have the most political clout get the lion’s share of the money?
FEEDING FRENZY
The most deserving projects submitted by those who have done all of the research and can add people to the rolls of the broadband connected should be in line for the grants. Unfortunately, we all know it won’t work that way. From talking to many others within the industry, including small rural wireless network operators, equipment vendors, school districts and rural counties, there is a feeding frenzy building around this pot of money, which is really not all that big. Everyone has a better idea, everyone wants a piece of it and the number of grant proposals submitted to the two agencies controlling the funds will be substantially more than can be funded. The worst part of this is that after the proposals are written and the money is sent to the winning grant writers, the result will be perhaps only a 1 percent to 2 percent lift in our broadband population and not the 4 percent to 6 percent lift we should see.
The fundamental problem with this process is the federal government is treating broadband connectivity as an issue in and of itself without understanding that broadband can provide many different types of services and that it should be funded by the companies and service providers that 
will be using broadband and not exclusively by stimulus money.
For example, in rural America today there are many schools that have broadband services while the surrounding towns do not. At 3:30 in the afternoon, the broadband capabilities of the school lie dormant until the next day. A simple tower and radio system could extend this broadband coverage to a radius of 3-10 miles around the school and provide 24/7 broadband to those who live and work within that area. Remote medical diagnostics for people and farm animals could be provided, businesses could become connected, and even the first responder community could benefit from a coordinated approach to broadband services in such areas.
Instead, two government agencies will be handing out broadband grants while those developing the smart grid will have to reinvent the communications wheel, as will the educational community and, of course, first responders. It would be a much more effective use of funds if our government could learn to work across agencies and, instead of awarding grants, decide to fund a few pilot projects that would address each segment mentioned above as well as others, take an inventory of what is already in place and then find the appropriate solution for each area, understanding that there will be different solutions for different areas.
If we could only convince all of the agencies involved to work together, we would have a pool of three to more times the amount of the stimulus bill that could be applied to providing real solutions and better return on investment numbers for those who decide to build out broadband where there is none today.
Seybold heads Andrew Seybold, Inc., which provides consulting, educational and
publishing services. For more information, visit www.andrewseybold.com.