"In this time of need for so many Americans, thank you so much for taking a moment to consider how you might help President Obama and your Federal Government deliver on the promise of economic recovery through the Recovery Act's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and Broadband Initiatives Program.
We need the help of experienced professionals like you to ensure the success of the BTOP grant program by lending some of your valuable hours to helping review the many applications we expect to receive over the coming months for broadband grant funding. To be considered as a reviewer you must have significant expertise and experience in at least one of the following areas:
1) the design, funding, construction, and operation of broadband networks or public computer centers;
2) broadband-related outreach, training, or education;
3) innovative programs to increase the demand for broadband services.
We are committed to ensuring that reviewers come from diverse backgrounds and areas of the United States. Please feel free to circulate this "Call for Reviewers" to other individuals or organizations that may be sources of qualified reviewers"
Now NTIA was never set up to do what RUS has been doing for three quarters of a century. Thus one suspects they need to be creative and seek alternatives to staffing up in a professional manner. Yet this reach out may readily result in a plethora of conflicts and a mix in expertise and competence to make the results problematic at best.
Consider what would happen if you started a venture capital firm and you just went to the public to assist on due diligence. You would lose a great deal of money.
Reviewing broadband is a complex process. It too us two years to get a proposal in and that was based upon having thirty years of experience with each member of the team. It meant walking down streets, doing market research, having technical expertise and being able to financially model the business and assess the risks and how to navigate around them. Despite all this we never closed because we could not get a franchise on the par with the existing cable company. Each town wanted twice as much as they got from cable. The economics would never support that.
Thus I come back to the simple set of facts and ask how any of this can be done. For we know:
1. Broadband using fiber requires a franchise and a franchise takes excessive time and costs as much as the fiber installation. Broadband using fiber also require pole attachments which are controlled by telcos and power companies and are also costly and a timely process.
2. Wireless broadband using even a modest amount of power require a license and they have been already auctioned or if it is new spectrum it is costly and delayed in time.
3. WiFi works in urban areas to some degree but it is a major challenge in rural and ex-urban markets. The signal just does not travel very far, we have gotten 1,000 feet at the very best!
Thus the three major approaches have very high barriers to entry. As for satellites and others extreme approaches they are also beyond the pale of cost effectiveness.
Thus will NTIA get professional reviewers, I doubt that. They may very well get enthusiastic individuals who want to see the self fulfilling prophecy come to fruition, yet they may for the most part lack the professional expertise required. In contrast there sits the RUS professionals doing their Herculean tasks in a manner respecting the value of the taxpayers money. A contrast in Government.
Posts
