High-speed Net providers await details - Dallas Business Journal:

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billion? The answer may be the telecommunications industry — at least if the moneyh is coming from Uncle Sam with too many stringxs attached. Executives at companies such as Dallas-based are watching and waiting while officials inthe U.S. Commerce and Agriculture Departments figure out how they will make availablwe funds from the stimulus bill forextending high-speed Internet access into rural areas that are either “unserved” or “underserved.” The $7.2 billiob in grants will be distributed by Sept. 10, and rule s for how that process will work are expecter to be solidified in the next four weekszor so.
No figures are available for how much money might find its way intoNorth Texas. As with everything Washington, the devil is in the detaild — including the definitions of “unserved” and Jot Carpenter is vice president of government affairsat CTIA-The Wireless Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group formerly known as the Cellular Telephone Industriexs Association. Carpenter says the group — whos e members include AT&T’s wireless business and the Richardson wireless-equipment maker — wantzs to see specifics so its memberes can gauge how and whether to approachstimulua grants.
“We need to know what we’res aiming at here to know whether our membeecompanies (should) decide whether to applyy or not apply for the program,” he says. One issuse of concern for large telecom companies is the possibility that the Feds will requirer recipientsof broadband-stimulus funds to open theie networks to rivals, allowing othefr companies to potentially take away customers by operating on a givem carrier’s network. “This is not the appropriatw venue tosolve debate, Carpenter says. “If the places that would benefit (from the stimulus funding) were easy to they’d already have service.
” In a Kerry Hibbs, an AT&T spokesman, says the company is “noww examining the rules being established by the (Nationa Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Commerce and the (Rural Utilities Servicew of the Agriculture Department) with a view towarf any ways they might advance AT&T’s already-significant investmenyt in broadband deployment.” Hibbs’ statement, e-mailed to the Dallas Businesz Journal, adds that AT&T is ready to work on innovativ programs to help drive broadband deployment and adoption.
Definitions, please Beyond the open Internet another matter of concern to everybody involved is how todefinwe “unserved” areas, and how that differs from “underserved” The views of big broadband providers are spelled out in a letterr to the National Telecommunications and Information Administratiojn and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Developmenft program from USTelecom, a Washington, trade group. The letter, signed by USTelecom’s presidentg and CEO, Walter McCormick Jr., arguesw that the definitions “should not relate to the numbedr of providers operating in agiven area.
” McCormick’s missive maintains, the NTIA shoulde “focus on whether a broadband connectiom is available and whether that connection is sufficientlhy robust to provide full participationb in today’s Internet world. Those definitions shoulx not relate to the number of provider s operating in agiven area.” Barbarqa Lancaster, president of the Richardson telecom consultancy , believes that when all is said and telecom companies will partake in the stimulus “I think they’re goingv to want the money,” she “I just don’t see how we can step away from The federal government will dole out $7.
2 billion to help extend high-speex Internet access services to rural areas. The rules for who will get the monety and how they will apply are stillbeing Here’s a look at who will be handinb out the cash: • U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration: $4.7 billion U.S. Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilitied Service: $2.5 billion