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The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service are reportedly changing the rules in which applicants apply for federal broadband stimulus money. 

 

There's $4.8 billion available as grants and loads 'as part of the second round of broadband stimulus funding,' according to industry observer Maisie Ramsay (News - Alert). 

NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling issued a statement saying “Based on the feedback we received from stakeholders and our own experience in the first funding round, we are making the application process more user-friendly, sharpening our funding focus to make the biggest impact with this investment, and streamlining our review process to increase efficiency.'

 

Industry observer Rahul Gaitonde reported last week that NTIA has a new Web site 'designed to foster partnerships and collaborations among broadband stimulus applicants.'

The site couldn't come at a better time: The broadband community wants to know who the winners of broadband stimulus funding are, Gaitonde reports, as well as 'the new Notice of Funds Availability regarding the second and final round.'

 

According to the NTIA Web site itself, BroadbandMatch is 'an online service to help applicants for Recovery Act broadband grants find potential partners with whom to apply. Infrastructure providers find content providers! Large-scale institutions find small-scale community organizations! Practitioners find researchers!'

 

“It’s like a matchmaking service where interested parties can discover each other to pursue their mutual interests,” RUS Administrator Jonathan S. Adelstein (News - Alert) said.

 

As Gaitonde reported, 'Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February 2009, all of the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding must be awarded by September 2009. NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling has on numerous occasions said that public-private partnerships are among one of the many solutions to filling broadband gaps.' 

Adelstein said the application process has been streamlined to “make the process easier for applicants and target our resources toward ‘last-mile’ broadband connections to homes and businesses.” 

Ramsay reported that 'both the NTIA and RUS received widespread complaints about the application process after the first round of funding when businesses became frustrated with a lack of transparency and the complexity and length of the application.' She wrote that while NTIA has about $2.6 billion allocated to it in this funding round, of which about $2.35 billion will be made available for infrastructure projects.