The Obama administration is releasing $182 million worth of initial awards from a $7.2 billion program to extend high-speed Internet to communities lacking the service.
“We rank 15th in the world in broadband access,” Vice President Joe Biden said at a metal fabrication company in Dawsonville, Georgia, where he announced the North Georgia Network Cooperative is to receive a $33.5 million grant. “We have to lead the world.”
Biden said broadband access is vital to keep U.S. manufacturing, education and medical facilities competitive.
“Without high speed Internet they can’t do Web video, they can’t do audio, they can’t speak to their customers or see their customers or have relationships with them that makes modern-day success possible,” he said.
The initial awards will fund 18 projects in 17 states. That will begin a process that Biden’s chief economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, said will result in disbursements of more than $2 billion in grants and loans over the next 75 days. Remaining funds will be distributed next year. The money is part of the $787 billion economic stimulus enacted earlier this year.
Competitive Tool
Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, a Republican, attended the event with Biden and said his state needed to build a 21st century infrastructure. He called broadband Internet a critical “tool to compete in this information-based economy.”
Projects selected include a 260-mile fiber optic ring that will help carry high-speed Internet, or broadband, in northern Georgia, according to a White House release.
After Internet lines are extended to communities, companies may invest to provide service over “the last mile” to homes and business, said Peter Swire, special assistant to the president for economic policy.
The broadband program “will support tens of thousands of jobs” including those for workers building networks and factory employees making components, Bernstein said.
“We also get some real bang for the buck with employment that’s indirect,” such as colleges and hospitals offering new high-technology jobs, and new business attracted to communities newly served by broadband, Bernstein said.
Officials received about 2,200 applications requesting almost $28 billion in funding, the agencies administering the program said. The effort is shared between the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a Commerce Department branch, and the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service.
The agencies had intended to make initial awards in early November and moved the date back. Lawrence Strickling, an assistant secretary at the NTIA, cited a large volume of complex applications in testimony before the Senate Oct. 27.
“I will not fund a bad application,” Strickling told senators. Given the volume of applications, “we’re right on schedule,” Strickling said during yesterday’s news conference.
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U.S. Awards First Grants in $7.2 Billion Broadband Program
Source: Bloomberg
Date: 12/17/2009
