On my tracker for this week:
1. Someone asked me if I thought there would be additional awards this month. My RUS contact told me earlier that she knew awards would be given out by the end of the month. I asked her to clarify if that is still the case or if she was referring to the ones given out last week. To be honest, I would be surprised if that was the case because it looks like it took much scrambling and such to pull off the multiple simultaneous announcements in multiple states, embargoed releases and carefully crafted and selected applicants and... whew! I'm exhausted just writing all that down. So I do not think this close to Christmas and New Year's the government has all that in it to repeat. What MAY happen is that the final waves of the remaining 2 billion and change is released purely Press Release style as was the case with the Mapping Grants. (edited to add that I am not questioning that they will be awarded just the method)
I put in my query to my old faithful RUS contact and will report what she says.
2. While I had her ear, I also asked if the remaining $2billion and change allocated for round 1 will be announced before the NOFA for round 2 because clearly people need to plan these things around whether or not their project is funded in Round 1. We'll see what she says...
3. Finally, I also asked her to verify the Twitter accounts. Someone (St. Louis Broadband) questioned if the USDA and NTIA Twitter accounts were authentic considering the fact that neither had the verified Twitter marking of authenticity. Twitter started handing those out at the requests of celebrities who were finding people were opening fake accounts with their names (e.g. well hard earned brands), accumulating massive amount of followers and pretending to be those celebrities. Apparently, FCC was astute enough to request one when it started or a bright intern at Twitter saw the account and confirmed its realness. In any event, the NTIAgov Twitter account hasn't been updated since last week, which could mean one of several things: a. it was started by someone at NTIA but whoever is in charge is not updating it regularly; b. there's no new news to update (this one I hardly believe as there's always something going on that FCC is at Tweeting feverishly about); or c. it was started by a someone without authority to create it who just isn't keeping it up and is creating cause for him/her to be outed sooner than later.
In other Broadband award speculation news, CJ Settles published an article on his blog sharing some insights and pontificating on whether his early predictions have come into fruition.
In response to his thoughts over the fact that Telcos were awarded relatively small amounts, I'd say that was the case simply because of that "rush" he mentioned to get something out the door STATt! Just as the public/private partnerships made sense to fund out the gate, so did it make sense to fund projects requesting smaller amounts that most likely weren't challenged. The one big project that was awarded and announced by Biden has already been getting some mild push back from those that challenged its funding area.
Also, there was a lot of speculation that wireless guys would be the big winners. Many point out that the NOFA and literature coming from the government seemingly favored wireless projects. I think that will still be the case when it is time to award last mile projects.
All those early analysts were and are correct that it makes sense to fund the middle mile projects that will create the infrastructure to reach the internet backbone and will provide lower cost options for the last mile folks to interconnect to, so to speak. Wireless is still not seen as a viable middle mile solution, whether correctly or not and perhaps that is why fiber and maybe some satellite projects may win in that arena. Who knows?
And in reply to CJ Settles mention of the Chest Thumping by the winners, I think it's one thing to make big claims but the government reporting requirements demand that projects document and report every single NEW customer that the project signs up.
So to say, 'I SEE YOUR 700 NEW SUBSCRIBERS YOUR PROJECT CLAIM AND I RAISE YOU 7,000 NEW SUBSCRIBERS' you've got to be prepared to Walk the Walk after Talking all that talk eh? err. yeah.
Anyway, all this speculation is making me hungry. Time for breakfast!
1. Someone asked me if I thought there would be additional awards this month. My RUS contact told me earlier that she knew awards would be given out by the end of the month. I asked her to clarify if that is still the case or if she was referring to the ones given out last week. To be honest, I would be surprised if that was the case because it looks like it took much scrambling and such to pull off the multiple simultaneous announcements in multiple states, embargoed releases and carefully crafted and selected applicants and... whew! I'm exhausted just writing all that down. So I do not think this close to Christmas and New Year's the government has all that in it to repeat. What MAY happen is that the final waves of the remaining 2 billion and change is released purely Press Release style as was the case with the Mapping Grants. (edited to add that I am not questioning that they will be awarded just the method)
I put in my query to my old faithful RUS contact and will report what she says.
2. While I had her ear, I also asked if the remaining $2billion and change allocated for round 1 will be announced before the NOFA for round 2 because clearly people need to plan these things around whether or not their project is funded in Round 1. We'll see what she says...
3. Finally, I also asked her to verify the Twitter accounts. Someone (St. Louis Broadband) questioned if the USDA and NTIA Twitter accounts were authentic considering the fact that neither had the verified Twitter marking of authenticity. Twitter started handing those out at the requests of celebrities who were finding people were opening fake accounts with their names (e.g. well hard earned brands), accumulating massive amount of followers and pretending to be those celebrities. Apparently, FCC was astute enough to request one when it started or a bright intern at Twitter saw the account and confirmed its realness. In any event, the NTIAgov Twitter account hasn't been updated since last week, which could mean one of several things: a. it was started by someone at NTIA but whoever is in charge is not updating it regularly; b. there's no new news to update (this one I hardly believe as there's always something going on that FCC is at Tweeting feverishly about); or c. it was started by a someone without authority to create it who just isn't keeping it up and is creating cause for him/her to be outed sooner than later.
In other Broadband award speculation news, CJ Settles published an article on his blog sharing some insights and pontificating on whether his early predictions have come into fruition.
In response to his thoughts over the fact that Telcos were awarded relatively small amounts, I'd say that was the case simply because of that "rush" he mentioned to get something out the door STATt! Just as the public/private partnerships made sense to fund out the gate, so did it make sense to fund projects requesting smaller amounts that most likely weren't challenged. The one big project that was awarded and announced by Biden has already been getting some mild push back from those that challenged its funding area.
Also, there was a lot of speculation that wireless guys would be the big winners. Many point out that the NOFA and literature coming from the government seemingly favored wireless projects. I think that will still be the case when it is time to award last mile projects.
All those early analysts were and are correct that it makes sense to fund the middle mile projects that will create the infrastructure to reach the internet backbone and will provide lower cost options for the last mile folks to interconnect to, so to speak. Wireless is still not seen as a viable middle mile solution, whether correctly or not and perhaps that is why fiber and maybe some satellite projects may win in that arena. Who knows?
And in reply to CJ Settles mention of the Chest Thumping by the winners, I think it's one thing to make big claims but the government reporting requirements demand that projects document and report every single NEW customer that the project signs up.
So to say, 'I SEE YOUR 700 NEW SUBSCRIBERS YOUR PROJECT CLAIM AND I RAISE YOU 7,000 NEW SUBSCRIBERS' you've got to be prepared to Walk the Walk after Talking all that talk eh? err. yeah.
Anyway, all this speculation is making me hungry. Time for breakfast!
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