Commerce Department to Fund Middle-mile Projects, Locke Says
The Commerce Department will have made more than $4 billion in grants by September to help connect to broadband communities that are unserved or underserved, Secretary Gary Locke said at a briefing Thursday run by the Democratic Leadership Council. The department is funding “middle-mile highways of high-speed Internet” connecting community anchor institutions like colleges, hospitals and government institutions, Locke said.
Most of the grants are to build out the type of high-speed Internet infrastructure that private investors have been unwilling or unable to do, Locke said. The private sector will then come in with billions of dollars in additional investments to connect to the federally funded Internet backbone and provide high-speed Internet service to individual homes and businesses, he said.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working with business on interoperability standards for health IT and has made progress on interoperability standards for the smart grid, Locke said. Work to overhaul the Patent Office at home and crack down on counterfeiting and other infringement against U.S. goods abroad also is important, he said. The goal for patents is to decide on an application within 12 months if the filer wants, Locke said.
Locke announced 10 stimulus grants totaling more than $63 million. The largest American Indian reservation, the Navajo Nation, received $32.2 million to build a high-speed Internet. The NTIA received more than 1,800 applications during the first BTOP funding round, he said. The agency just received a second round of applications in the BTOP Sustainable Broadband Adoption and Public Computer Center grant categories, and it’s accepting applications in the BTOP Comprehensive Community Infrastructure grant category through Friday.
Broadband is critical for small- and mid-sized businesses, especially in rural areas, said Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo. Broadband is also essential to bringing offshore jobs home, said Angela Selden, CEO of Arise Virtual Solutions, saying hundreds of thousands of call-center jobs have been shipped overseas. Selden urged expansion of computer education and broadband access so more people can work from home.
High-speed Internet services are crucial to any company that wants to process a large volume of transactions efficiently, said a report by DLC’s Jessica Milano, which was released at the briefing. Broadband access also enables small businesses to build websites that advertise their services in a fast, interactive and reliable format, it said. In this way, broadband can be an important tool to help level the playing field between large and small businesses and between urban and rural communities, it said. The report proposed simplifying the research and development tax credit and make it permanent, allowing small businesses to budget for long-term innovative projects.
AT&T agrees with the DLC’s findings that creating jobs depends on business investment and that broadband, wireless infrastructure and information technology are great places to invest, said Senior Vice President Xavier Williams. The carrier will invest up to $19 billion this year, he said. That investment translates into jobs across AT&T’s lines of business, he said. Policymakers need to create the conditions that encourage investment and innovation and resist “the temptation to intervene” in the Internet ecosystem in a way that could shut out tomorrow’s business models and the jobs they will create, he said.