Press Release
Free Press Releases Broadband Stimulus Grant Scorecard
Contact: Timothy Karr, 201-533-8838
WASHINGTON -- In a roundtable discussion on broadband stimulus at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner outlined the five criteria policymakers should use to score potential broadband deployment projects: adoption and affordability, speed, civics, job creation and efficiency.
A live webcast of the roundtable is available at: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/video.html
The roundtable, which begins today at 1 p.m., is part of a series of public discussions on how to allocate the $7.2 billion apportioned for broadband in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.
Prepared testimony of S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press:
I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on the topic that is perhaps the most critical and most challenging. The hardworking folks at NTIA and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) have the unenviable task of picking winners and losers out of what promises to be a large pool of applicants.
The challenge for these agencies is to turn Congress' broad legislative language into an objective and defensible system for prioritizing applications. We have tried to do just that, with a broadband stimulus grant scorecard that rates potential deployment projects based on the following five criteria:
A detailed explanation of our scorecard is available at http://www.freepress.net/files/Scoring Criteria for BTOP Grants.pdf
I'd like to briefly mention a few things that are not in our scoring system, and explain why they've been excluded.
First, we don't give any weight to the customers-served-per-dollar ratio, because giving that weight could actually favor projects that would likely have occurred without stimulus support. Instead we suggest NTIA contract with engineering firms to evaluate the reasonableness of each application from a cost perspective.
Second, we don't give preference to larger projects. We believe projects of all sizes deserve funding, which is why we suggest that NTIA and RUS develop several strata of projects by award size, and make a number of small, medium and large awards.
Finally, we make no distinction between unserved and underserved for weighting purposes. We feel that once an area is certified as meeting either definition, then they should have equal status to compete for Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants.
Free Press' broadband stimulus grant scorecard: http://www.freepress.net/files/Scoring Criteria for BTOP Grants.pdf
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Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at www.freepress.net
A live webcast of the roundtable is available at: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/video.html
The roundtable, which begins today at 1 p.m., is part of a series of public discussions on how to allocate the $7.2 billion apportioned for broadband in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.
Prepared testimony of S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press:
I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on the topic that is perhaps the most critical and most challenging. The hardworking folks at NTIA and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) have the unenviable task of picking winners and losers out of what promises to be a large pool of applicants.
The challenge for these agencies is to turn Congress' broad legislative language into an objective and defensible system for prioritizing applications. We have tried to do just that, with a broadband stimulus grant scorecard that rates potential deployment projects based on the following five criteria:
- Adoption and affordability: We award up to 25 points for factors such as price, competition, openness and other potential consumer benefits.
- Speed: A project can receive up to 25 points based on actual -- not advertised -- upstream and downstream speeds, and how shared and potentially oversubscribed a network will be.
- Civics: We award up to 20 points for community benefits like broadband education and training, public safety, free public Wi-Fi and tele-health -- with special consideration given to whether an applicant is a socially disadvantaged business.
- Job creation: We award up to 15 points based on the number of jobs directly created industry-wide by the project, with performance measured against economic criteria.
- Efficiency: A project can receive up to 15 points based on the long-term feasibility of the business and the network's scalability. In this category, we also consider whether the network owner will forgo any claim to future ongoing universal service support, as we are very concerned about the potential for ratepayers having to subsidize networks paid for by taxpayers.
A detailed explanation of our scorecard is available at http://www.freepress.net/files/Scoring Criteria for BTOP Grants.pdf
I'd like to briefly mention a few things that are not in our scoring system, and explain why they've been excluded.
First, we don't give any weight to the customers-served-per-dollar ratio, because giving that weight could actually favor projects that would likely have occurred without stimulus support. Instead we suggest NTIA contract with engineering firms to evaluate the reasonableness of each application from a cost perspective.
Second, we don't give preference to larger projects. We believe projects of all sizes deserve funding, which is why we suggest that NTIA and RUS develop several strata of projects by award size, and make a number of small, medium and large awards.
Finally, we make no distinction between unserved and underserved for weighting purposes. We feel that once an area is certified as meeting either definition, then they should have equal status to compete for Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants.
Free Press' broadband stimulus grant scorecard: http://www.freepress.net/files/Scoring Criteria for BTOP Grants.pdf
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Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at www.freepress.net
