The first broadband community grants to be awarded by United States Department of Agriculture will start to kick in this summer. They include both grants and loans.
Grants totaling $20 million with over $8.2 million benefiting 13 Native American and Native Alaskan communities have already been awarded in 17 states. The 40 applications selected were among over 300 to submit requests. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Reservation of Oregon received $695,832 from RUS, with a cumulative total of $10,045,799 for their broadband wireless proposal.
Communities selected do not have access to broadband connectivity for essential services of police, fire protection, hospitals, libraries and schools. In return for receiving a grant, the communities will provide community residents with computer and Internet access. The grant program supplements USDA Rural Development’s standard high-speed telecommunications loan program.
A separate - and larger - program is the USDA’s Rural Development telecommunications loan program. It provides low interest (4%) loans for rural broadband. This program made available $1.455 billion in loans for FY 2003, $1.295 billion for direct cost-of-money loans, $80 million for direct 4-percent loans, and $80 million for loan guarantees.
Loans and loan guarantees are not be made for less than 100,000. Maximum loan amounts apply only to the direct 4-percent loan program. The maximum amount available for any one applicant for a direct 4-percent loan is $5,000,000.
An applicant will be eligible for a direct 4-percent loan if:
- The community being served has a population of less than 2,500, and is not currently receiving broadband service as defined at 1738.11(b)(1)
- The per capita income in the county being served as a percent of national per capita income, is not more than 55 percent of the national per capita income, as determined by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce, at www.bea.doc.gov.
- The population density, calculated as the total number of persons in the service area divided by the square miles of the service area is not more than 10 persons per square mile.
Application guides to assist in the preparation of these low-cost loans are available in the Internet at www.usda.gov/rus/telecom, as well as www.wcai.com/rural and www.rurdev.usda.gov. Application guides may also be requested from RUS by contacting;
- Deborah Jackson,
Telecommunications Program,
RUS/USDA, Room 2919, Stop 1541,
1400 Independence Avenue, SW.,
Washington, DC
(202) 720–8427.
The deadline for the 2003 loan and grants has come and gone. It was March this year. But another round is expected next year. Additional resources and links are available as is a wireless long-haul mailing list and A Guide to Rural Wireless.
This summer might be a good time to talk to participants in the programs. There’s going to be lots of construction.
Check out developments in new (unlicensed) “first mile” technologies.
- Wi-Fi switches are coming from Cisco, Foundry, Extreme and others. They might work with Ethernet First Mile. Proxim’s Maestro, for example, claims to “integrate, configure, and centrally manage voice, data, and video across wired and unwired networks.
- Vivato’s outdoor Wi-Fi switch can track ordinary 802.11b clients outdoors for a mile or more.
- 802.16a/e will provide 30 mile range, mobile voice, messaging, and data.
- Sony’s new PSX, due in 6 months, creates a new entertainment category with a built-in DVD recorder, a 120GB hard drive, a TV tuner, an Ethernet port, a USB 2.0 port and a Memory Stick slot.
There’s a package. Everything for $39.95 a month.
Loans are only available for small communities (under 2,500 population). Below is a list of eligible communities for the 4% loan program that was closed in March of this year. Although things can always change, similar funds and eligibility may be available for FY 2004.
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