Meetings started in March hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Utilities Services (RUS) to discuss the objectives and overall process for allocating funding for the “Broadband Stimulus” program.

Two primary government agencies have been allocated funding to disperse through various means to develop a national broadband plan:

• U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). NTIA has recently created a media rich Web site to monitor the progress on discussing technology approaches and the process to grant funds at www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/. The NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (known in the media as “the stimulus package” recently signed into law by President Obama). The BTOP as described on this Web site will “provide grant support to enable consumers in unserved and underserved areas of the United States to access broadband services. The BTOP’s $4.7 billion in funding will stimulate demand and facilitate greater use of broadband services, while contributing to economic growth and job creation.

“Grant uses include the acquisition of equipment, instrumentation, networking capability, hardware and software; the acquisition of network technology and infrastructure for broadband services; the construction and deployment of broadband service-related infrastructure; the deployment of broadband facilities that improve public safety communications; and facilitating access to broadband service by low-income, unemployed, aged and other vulnerable populations, and by community anchor institutions.”

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utilities Services (RUS). The USDA RUS also has a Web site at http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/index.htm. RUS said in a press release, “In order to improve access to broadband service in rural areas without service or that lack sufficient access to high speed broadband service to facilitate rural economic development, Congress provided, through the Recovery Act, $2.5 billion to the Agency to provide grants, loans, and loan guarantees for the development and construction of broadband systems.”

Just getting your handle on — who is doing what to whom and when — is a challenge in itself following this initiative. But as you can see, these programs are not just about building out rural broadband infrastructure but extending services across socioeconomic classes and geographic diversity, giving people a choice of service providers and hopefully lowering their costs for broadband access. So the key messaging from both government agencies is the notion of “unserved” populations, whether they are in the inner city or rural areas.

This can open up a whole new inexpensive wireless handset boom that has been going in China for sometime, assuming that a great deal of this broadband access will get delivered with wireless technologies like next generation cellular long term evolution (LTE), WiMAX and Wi-Fi. These technologies will be creating overlay networks to current 3G cellular networks in some cases. And with the open network mantra being pushed with the broadband stimulus objectives, this could herald the start of cost-effective voice and data connectivity, and even video services with higher speed connections for the unserved market.

Ken Osowski is an independent consultant. He can be reached at ken.osowski@verizon.net.

The recent stimulus package allocates $7.2 billion for building out Internet broadband network access to rural areas in the United States. This broadband initiative is referred to in the legislation signed by President Obama on February 17, 2009, as the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.

Out of the entire 407-page so-called “stimulus package” document, there are six pages or so on the broadband initiative itself. The document contains the following brief wording on program objectives:

The purposes of the program are to:

• provide access to broadband service to consumers residing in unserved areas of the United States;
• provide improved access to broadband service to consumers residing in underserved areas of the United States;
• provide broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment, and support to—schools, libraries, medical and healthcare providers, community colleges...(with others enumerated in a long list);
• improve access to, and use of, broadband service by public safety agencies; and
• stimulate the demand for broadband, economic growth and job creation.

Regarding next steps mentioned:

... Not later than one year after the date of enactment of this section, the Commission shall submit to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate, a report containing a national broadband plan.

... The plan shall (also) include —

• an analysis of the most effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States;
• a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public;
• an evaluation of the status of deployment of broadband service, including progress of projects supported by the grants made pursuant to this section.

And further:

Not later than two years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary shall make the broadband inventory map developed and maintained pursuant to this section accessible by the public on a World Wide Web site...

So before we get all excited in the telecom industry, we have a ways to go before we see ditch witches installing fiber or cranes raising tower infrastructure in rural areas. It’s important to note that the bill does not include specifics on how the funds will be allocated.

But there is hope that with a plan we can achieve some level of consensus on the technical approach to achieving these goals. It took several decades for the electricity and public telephone networks to gain critical mass. Most of this development was done on the nickel of private companies with the government only getting involved in the later stages. So let’s hope we can avoid the so-called “war of currents” that debated the merits of transmission and distribution of AC versus DC power in the first 20+ years of the 20th century.

Also, let’s hope that we take a hard look at how other countries have tackled this problem and not let large incumbent service providers dictate and lobby that we use wired versus wireless technologies, for example. The government has a history of intervening in the electrical network build-out — take, for example, the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 and the short-lived nationalization of the public telephone network in 1918. Just as Obama has studied up on Lincoln, it might be good if his team did their homework on how government can successfully intervene in a large, far-reaching technical project such as this.

Ken Osowski is vice president of marketing and product management for Pactolus Communications Software, a provider of next-generation IP communication solutions for either converged TDM/IP and/or SIP-enabled VoIP networks.

The economy has certainly been having an impact on the automotive, financial services and retail industries these days. But you almost need a family tree to keep track of who is in business or not, who was acquired and who was spun out (possibly multiple times) in the telecommunications industry. Just in our segment of the VoIP industry — application server vendors — the numbers keep dwindling with only a few of us remaining. At this point it looks like those of us that developed turnkey applications for the service provider market are weathering the storm and those that chose to only deliver a platform for customers and third parties to build applications are having a tougher time.

But wasn’t this all inevitable? Industry pundits have been predicting the demise of the PSTN and the rise of IP telephony for well over a decade now. We all thought that the market growth would sustain a shift to IP-based technologies, that new companies would bring innovation to the market while legacy TDM technology suppliers would gradually morph their product lines with IP-based protocol interfaces and new hardware.

But time is not on any company’s side these days. The market growth for next generation network technology is more gradual than we all thought. Yes, the transition is happening to IP but at a much slower rate. New TDM product investment by service providers has slowed considerably. This means that some legacy suppliers are struggling with a marginal business model that has placed too much emphasis on TDM-based products. So just as we saw with the computer industry’s move to open systems and non-proprietary software in the early ‘90s, we will see vendors just simply going away.

Of course this will create hardships for companies and people alike, but technology transitions are never easy and this one requires radical business model changes.

Yes VoIP, SIP, the move from proprietary hardware to software and other standardized interfaces will all continue to happen in spite of the current economic conditions. It’s just going to be a little bit harder to not fall into the chasm.

Ken Osowski is vice president of marketing and product management for Pactolus Communications Software, a provider of next-generation IP communication solutions for either converged TDM/IP and/or SIP-enabled VoIP networks.