Among the stimulus dollars still to be pumped into the economy: $4 billion in grants and $3.2 billion in loans to expand broadband Internet access to underserved areas. The feds have received 1130 applications to build "last-mile" services—the projects that lay the cable or erect the towers that get signal to people's houses and businesses. A quarter of those applications have come from companies and organizations looking to extend WiMAX wireless systems. Nationwide, WiMAX vendors have submitted $1.6 billion worth of requests for stimulus funding, out of a pile of last-mile funding requests totaling $14.2 billion.
WiMAX—that's the technology Sioux Valley Energy uses to beam out Internet signals from the top of the Madison hi-rise to an eight-mile service radius. Sioux Valley also has WiMax transmitters in Hartford and Brookings (Brookings?! I hadn't heard about that one!). A search of the NTIA database of broadband stimulus apps shows Sioux Valley is applying for $480,000 to extend WiMAX service to four communities.
Sioux Valley's grant request is the smallest broadband stimulus received from a South Dakota organization. Twelve different South Dakota organizations have applied for over $250 million in grants to extend broadband service. The biggest request: Pierre-based Dakota 2000, Inc., is seeking $132 million to build a fiber-optic cable network that would connect all Native American tribes in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana. That ambitious project is just one portion of a proposed Ring of Nations that aims to connect tribes all across America to Native-owned broadband service.
Among the reasons to hope Uncle Sam approves South Dakota's broadband stimulus apps: according to a 2007 Brookings Institution report by Robert Crandall, William Lehr, and Robert Litan, every 1% increase in broadband penetration in a state is associated with a 0.2% to 0.3% increase in non-farm employment. Hmm: In October, South Dakota had 406,500 non-farm workers. Increase broadband penetration in the state by 1%, and, if Crandall et al. are right, we could easily add 800 new jobs. That would almost erase joblessness in Madison and Brookings. Increase broadband penentration by 10%, and we could put 8000 people to work and drop the state unemployment rate back below 3%.
Dang: maybe the LAIC needs to subsidize broadband access in Lake County to bring down our 7% unemployment rate. Or maybe South Dakota should look at a plan to turn the whole state into one big wireless hotspot.
My employer, Qwest Communications, looked into the broadband stimulus. The federal government has many strings attached to that money.
ReplyDelete1) All profits created for the next 5 years go back to Uncle Sam.
2) Uncle Sam will give the direction of the broadband push.
In our company we have a debate - do we provide broadband for all, or do we place fiber to the curb in our metro's. Mnpls, Dever, Phoenix get upgrades while the rurals keep getting what they always have - dialup.
The rub is the customer has always been paying extra fees and taxes to pay for upgrades but that money has gone to other federal programs.