Broadband: The Trend is Your Friend
Broadband is the hottest word in government markets and with billions of good reasons. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, $7.2 billion has been set aside to deliver broadband services to the unserved and underserved. As part of the overall funding, the U.S. Congress approved $4.7 billion for the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP). The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will administer the program and distribute the funds in grants. The Department of Agriculture will administer the remaining $2.5 billion through its Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program. The Rural Development program’s mission is to increase economic opportunity and improve the quality of life for rural residents. The agency provides many programs for financing rural America’s telecommunications infrastructure, including broadband, telemedicine, and distance learning. Given their mission and successful track record, The USDA Rural Development was a natural choice to oversee loans and loan guarantees for the funds provided in the stimulus package.
The funding bill authorized by Congress included the terms unserved and under served without any definitions, thereby leaving it up to the agencies. Both the NTIA and USDA have requested public comments to establish rules for the proposal and awards process. The agencies are currently reviewing the numerous public comments they received and are gearing up to receive a tremendous number of proposals once the rules have been formalized. Hughes and WildBlue will be submitting proposals and are actively engaged in preparations. "We are targeting areas that have 100 households per square mile or less," says Lisa Scalpone, vice president legal and government affairs at WildBlue. "Satellite is ideal for bringing broadband services to extremely small communities," she says. If stimulus funds are to be used to expand the nations’ existing infrastructure, "in the case of satellite, this might mean two things: expanding space segment capacity and enhancing the infrastructure on the ground for satellite communications," she says.
| "We see a tremendous interest from regional governments that want to use satellite communications to restore 911 dispatch centers. Getting those regional centers back up and running is critical during a disaster. Satellite is the best answer. — Zalle, Squire Tech Solutions" |
WildBlue is actively engaged in different research and development programs and is looking at a number of opportunities, both in space and on the ground to expand and improve its offerings to compete against terrestrial competitors. "One option which could be proposed is a new high capacity satellite to augment WildBlue’s existing in-orbit satellites. "The next generation of Ka-band satellites will provide ten times the capacity as compared to today’s on-orbit satellites with download speeds up to 10 megabits per second. We think a new satellite would be great for rural America and for the aerospace industry as well. Other countries are developing large Ka-band satellites for innovative uses. We need to consider this as a country as well. We shouldn’t fall behind the rest of the world in satellite broadband. "In addition to providing broadband services to the rural America, our proposals will help create new jobs. We currently have 2,000 dealers across the country but they are going to need to add staff to help with all of the new installations. In addition, aerospace contractors will need to add people to help with the design, construction and launch of the new satellite. One of the challenges of satellite technology is the up front costs. This requires financing but the capital markets are closed right now. Stimulus funds could help jump start the financing," she says.
Spacenet also sees the key challenge for satellite players being convincing those with funds to spend that satellite can do the job. "Satellite is clearly the best technology to meet many of the stated requirements. It’s available today, it’s more economical to deliver broadband to very rural areas and it’s much more cost efficient for an area with low population density," says Andreas Georghiou, CEO of Spacenet. "However, it became clearer that the terrestrial players were intent on making an apples to oranges comparison on bits per second and monthly service rates. What’s more, they were really making this comparison to satellite networks as they existed 10 years ago. While we’re more than happy to have an honest discussion that compares the economics of connecting rural areas with satellite versus terrestrial; at the same time, we thought we should take another approach and go on the offensive. The team at Spacenet really took a step back and said, rather than have a discussion on how we can compete with terrestrial on cost per bit per second, why not have a conversation on where terrestrial can’t compete with us?"
Spacenet is touting a solution it dubs Multi-Network Bandwidth (MNB) Switching that meets a number of broadband needs as defined in the BTOP, delivering a set of solutions terrestrial alternatives cannot match. MNB Switching essentially provides a pool of broadband for disparate users to draw from. By combing traditional users at "community anchors" such as schools, libraries or hospitals with occasional use users such as first responders at a county or state wide level, the system meets the communications needs of each user community in a way terrestrial cannot and less expensively than terrestrial options.
A state may have any number of local "anchor institutions" such as schools, hospitals or libraries in rural areas where broadband is not easily accessible. They may also have a number of first responders throughout the state who need a Continuity of Operations solution that can work independently, regardless of potential terrestrial disasters. By essentially allowing them to share the same capacity, first responders will have guaranteed broadband access that can support voice, video or data requirements, wherever and whenever they need it. The state government has what equates to a large pool of broadband access they can dedicate as they deem fit to help connect their most underserved constituents during the 99.999 percent of the time these emergency networks are not active. In the case of a disaster situation, the pool of bandwidth can be instantly repurposed to support first responders, or any other public safety organization. Regardless of the type of disaster, or the extent of damage to the terrestrial infrastructure, critical first responder applications will be supported, including Land Mobile Radio or connectivity to the public communications grid. During these emergency situations the anchor institutions will have access to reduced capacity, and will only experience slower data speeds until network operations are returned to normal.
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