Politics and Law

Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps released a report on broadband strategy for rural America on Wednesday.

The report was mandated as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. In that bill Congress asked the Federal Communications Commission to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to submit "a report describing a comprehensive rural broadband strategy."

The emphasis on forming a rural broadband strategy came several months before President Obama took office. Obama also sees broadband as a priority and included funding for broadband development as part of the stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year.

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). As part of this bill, the FCC is also required to file a report with Congress in February 2010 describing a national broadband policy.

Copps called this report on rural broadband strategy a starting point for developing a national broadband policy. And even with the $7.2 billion of money from the stimulus package, Copps said that more money will be needed to ensure that every American has access to broadband.

Copps identified several issues in this report that must be overcome to get broadband deployed in rural areas. These issues include technological challenges, lack of data about where broadband is available and who is accessing it, and high network costs. Despite these challenges, Copps said that the U.S. government must pour resources into solving these problems just as it did when building the U.S. Postal Service, the railroads, the nationwide electrical grid, the interstate highway system, and even the Internet backbone.

"From the country's earliest days, building the nation's infrastructure has required federal resources and leadership, and this federal role continues," he said in the report. "At their inceptions, some of these projects were controversial. Many considered them too expensive; others doubted their efficacy. Today, few would question their value, but each of these undertakings depended on a strong and coordinated national vision."

Editors' note: This is a guest post. See Paul Bell's bio below.

When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in February, he spoke to the need for the United States to become more energy-efficient. To that end, the stimulus bill he recently signed into law provides more than $30 billion for energy efficiency projects, innovative technology loan guarantees, the retrofitting of federal facilities, and the development of the initial framework for a "smart" electrical grid.

These measures put the country on a long-term path toward so-called green-led growth. But how they are implemented is as important as their passage. Moving forward, policymakers must adopt reforms and take advantage of the stimulus funds to make government IT operations more energy-efficient. They also should set policies that encourage and incentivize the private sector to do the same.

To start, they should spotlight the significant stimulus funds aimed at upgrading information technology in federal facilities. Newer, more energy-efficient IT will drive long-term cost savings and environmental sustainability, while boosting government productivity and reducing energy consumption.

The federal government is a major IT user and, as such, a major energy consumer. The most recent Environmental Protection Agency report on federal energy consumption indicates that federal servers and data centers accounted for approximately 6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity use, for a total electricity cost of about $450 million annually (PDF). And energy use is slated to double by 2011.

The federal government can lead by example by pursuing two interlocking--but equally important--objectives:

First, the Obama administration should challenge federal agencies to freeze IT-related energy consumption at current levels while boosting computing output. This will be faster and potentially more effective than legislation.

And it's not as difficult as it sounds, but depends on successful implementation of three measures: New federal data centers must use the best available energy-efficient IT; existing federal data centers must be converted to "green" data centers within three years; and federal data centers must be connected to intelligent utility networks or smart grids, where possible. This will reduce energy consumption and drive significant cost savings for consumers, small businesses, large enterprises, and public-sector organizations, while enhancing U.S. competitiveness.

At Dell, we've learned that going green doesn't have to involve building costly new data centers. By applying a green approach to our own data centers, we are on track to save $52 million in related costs by the end of this year, and we've avoided the need to build a new data center altogether. We're able to compute more while consuming less.

The federal government must modernize data centers to improve energy efficiency. Most government--and private-sector--data centers have significant unused capacity due to servers consuming power but not always doing a lot of work. That can change by embracing technologies, such as virtualization, that optimize server productivity.

Virtualization is a technology that allows one server to do the work of many. Using software to create multiple virtual machines inside each physical system, virtualization reduces the number of servers required to run a data center. Combined with other technologies, a data center can do as much as three times more work using the same power and space. This unlocks unused capacity, increases computing power, and avoids the expense associated with overprovisioning and buying additional servers.

Second, government should establish policies that encourage greater IT energy efficiency in the private sector. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that for every extra kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed by information and communications technologies, the U.S. economy increases its overall energy savings by a factor of 10. In essence, efficient IT saves more energy than it uses.

Congress, regulators, and the Obama administration should start with a comprehensive assessment of government servers by class and power use. They also should develop a national strategy for deploying IT that drives energy efficiency. A senior White House representative, perhaps federal CIO Vivek Kundra, should coordinate federal efforts on energy-efficient IT, working with Congress to advance this agenda.

Policymakers also should develop a framework to support private-sector energy efficiency, including:

• Tax credits to invest in projects that reduce energy demand.
• Immediate expensing, or accelerated depreciation, for retrofitting or replacing IT that improves energy efficiency by at least 25 percent. Similar benefits should be considered for investment in broadband or related IT that supports flexible work or virtual-meeting programs.
• Energy efficiency investments for small-business administration loan programs.

In an era of tight budgets, Washington can invest in greater energy efficiency--an investment that will show a strong, timely return. While this is an investment for the long-term, it's imperative that desired efficiencies can be realized immediately.

Technology is the great catalyst for human progress, and now there is a valuable opportunity for government to help the sector realize vast new efficiencies, reduce costs, and simplify IT management.

The Obama administration announced new plans on Thursday to kick-start smart-grid development, including funding details and the start of a standardization process.

During a visit to Jefferson City, Mo., Vice President Joe Biden detailed plans for the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funds for smart-grid technology development grants. Additionally, the Energy Department will hand out $615 million for regional demonstration projects that exhibit smart-grid storage, monitoring and technology viability.

"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country--to take the wind from the Midwest and the sun from the Southwest and power areas across the country," Biden said in his prepared remarks. "By investing in updating the grid now, we will lower utility bills for American families and businesses, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and create good jobs that will drive our economic recovery."

The $3.375 billion Energy Department grant program will give out grants ranging from $500,000 to $20 million for smart-grid technology deployments. It will also give out grants of $100,000 to $5 million for the deployment of grid monitoring devices.

The $615 million for demonstration projects will specifically fund exhibitions that verify technology viability and examine new business models, give energy storage demonstrations, or exhibitions that demonstrate grid monitoring devices that allow system operators to manipulate electric flows in real time.

Alongside the vice president in Jefferson City, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced his plans to chair, with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a series of meetings in May with private-sector leaders and others involved in smart-grid development to devise industry-wide smart-grid standards. The meeting participants are expected to commit to a timetable for reaching a standards agreement and to abide by the standards devised.

Regulators and private-sector representatives have warned Washington that if common smart-grid standards are not implemented, the government risks wasting taxpayers' money on soon-obsolete technologies that could be incompatible with one another.

"A smart electricity grid will revolutionize the way we use energy, but we need standards in place to ensure that all this new technology is compatible and operating at the highest cybersecurity standards to protect the smart grid from hackers and natural disasters," Locke said in his prepared remarks. "The Recovery Act will fund the development of those standards so the exciting technology can finally take off."

When it comes to broadband, Australia isn't messing around.

Earlier this week the Australian government announced a new plan to build a new fiber-optic communications network that will cost the government about 43 billion Australian dollars or roughly $31 billion in U.S. money. The new national network, which will be built by a yet-to-be-named state-controlled company, will provide broadband speeds of 100 Mbps to about 90 percent of Australian homes, schools, and businesses by 2018. The other 10 percent will get broadband access via wireless technology.

The new network will be fast enough to allow Australians to watch multiple high-definition videos at once and download loads of other multimedia content all at once. Only a small number of countries today offer speeds that high to consumers, including South Korea, Japan, France, and Germany.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the government is taking this aggressive step because he believes a fiber-optic network is essential to stimulate the ailing economy. He also believes it will increase Australia's productivity and competitiveness with respect to other nations.

U.S. President Barack Obama also believes that broadband is crucial to keeping America competitive in the world. The U.S. has consistently fallen short of other nations when it comes to broadband. A year ago, the International Telecommunications Union ranked the U.S. 15th in the world when it comes to broadband. Australia was ranked 12th.

Even though both countries see broadband as an important way to stimulate the economy and a good investment for future productivity and innovation, they are going about it in very different ways. Instead of controlling the deployment of new telecommunications infrastructure, the U.S. plans to provide funding to the private sector as well as local and state governments to build infrastructure and invest in new services as they see fit.

Congress has allocated $7.2 billion as part of its overall economic stimulus package to increase broadband penetration and coverage and to provide faster, more affordable service to as many Americans as possible. As part of the new legislation, the Federal Communications Commission has also been tasked with coming up with a national broadband policy.

On Wednesday, the FCC opened up discussion to help establish a national broadband policy. While the stimulus investment is certainly a start, the U.S. government has made no strides to build infrastructure itself. Instead, it will rely on a public/private partnership to improve the national broadband network.

It will be interesting to see which approach proves to be most successful. Will Australia move more quickly up the ladder of productivity and technological innovation due to its investment in broadband? Or will the government sink billions of dollars into a project that is unsustainable in the free market?

On the flip side, will the approach taken by the U.S. really improve broadband access, penetration and speeds? Or will the investment only boost already affluent and broadband-rich regions, such as large cities? I'm very interested to hear what readers think about Australia's plans with respect to what the U.S. is doing, so please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Updated at 10:20 a.m. PDT with additional analysis and comments

WASHINGTON--As other government agencies race to dole out $7.2 billion in stimulus funds for broadband deployment, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday began the process of developing a holistic plan for improving broadband access nationwide.

The commission adopted a notice of inquiry that will seek out comment on a wide variety of issues affecting broadband deployment from diverse parties across the country. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the FCC has until next February to consider these issues and develop a national broadband plan.

"This commission has never, I believe, received a more serious charge than the one to spearhead development of a national broadband plan," acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said.

The notice of inquiry will ask for input on numerous issues, including: effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband, how to define and measure portability, affordable pricing and quality of services, the broadband program's impact on universal service programs, adoption and digital literacy rates, and how to advance policy goals such as public safety and the improvement of health care services through broadband.

FCC Chairman Michael Copps

(Credit: FCC)

"Our notice of inquiry seeks to be open, inclusive, out-reaching and data-hungry," Copps said. "It will go outside Washington, D.C., to rural communities, the inner city and tribal lands. It will go where the facts and the best analysis we can find take it."

The commissioner noted that the notice of inquiry will also consider the complications and challenges of implementing broadband, including ensuring openness, avoiding invasions of people's privacy, and ensuring cybersecurity.

Both Copps and Commissioner Jon Adelstein emphasized the need for the government to take a stronger role in fostering nationwide broadband access and adoption.

"Real economic and social progress needs to be fueled by both vigorous private enterprise and enlightened public policy," Copps said. "The missing ingredient until this year has been the enlightened public policy."

The media reform organization Free Press praised the FCC for beginning the process for increasing government guidance in the telecommunications sector.

"The blind deregulatory regime that we have today is a blueprint for what to avoid in the future," said Derek Turner, research director of Free Press. "Under the last administration's wait-and-see approach, competition disappeared, speeds stagnated, prices went through the roof, and the open Internet was placed in jeopardy."

Commissioner Robert McDowell said the FCC should take care to acknowledge the telecommunications industry's successes as well as its shortcomings.

The sector, he noted, "has positive momentum at a time when other sectors are struggling."

Susanne Guyer, Verizon's senior vice president of federal regulatory affairs, said in a statement that the company looks forward to working with the commission.

"Given its importance to economic growth, job creation, and international competitiveness, creating a climate for investment in advanced broadband networks should be job one at the FCC," she said. "Through this plan, the FCC can take a major step toward ensuring that all Americans have access to broadband networks and have the skills and devices necessary to access the economic and social benefits available through broadband connections."

Bumpy road ahead?
But some telecommunications policy experts say that the road toward a comprehensive broadband policy could be a bumpy one. The main reason is that the Commission has opened the inquiry up to a wide array of participants. And it is asking a broad range of questions and even asking respondents to share any other thoughts about what the policy should entail.

And unlike previous FCC inquiries, this one has a hard deadline of February 2010. This means that the FCC staff will have to work quickly to compile what is likely to be a tsunami of comments on a broad range of topics. Melding these comments into a cohesive set of policies will be a huge challenge.

"At the end of the day someone has to write something up," said Glenn Richards, a partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman's communications law practice. "What concerns me is that the FCC will get so many comments from so many different entities, it might be hard to come away with something that is useful."

There are also expected to be big battles among different groups as the comment cycle progresses. The most obvious may be the fight for Net Neutrality laws or regulation. Supporters of Net Neutrality regulation believe that there should be protections to ensure that applications are not blocked or degraded on the Internet. But service providers say that new regulation could hinder their ability to manage their networks.

Richards also believes another big fight between incumbent service providers and consumer advocates and others may center on defining what is considered an "under-served" region. One of the goals of the new broadband policy is to get affordable broadband to as many people as possible.

"When we talk about under-served regions, you have to define what that means," he said. "Is it sufficient to have one provider in an area? Or is two enough? Do we need to set policy and provide funding to regions for three providers, when some areas of the country don't have any broadband? These are going to be some of the tough questions that will be asked and debated."

But when it comes to doling out the money from the economic stimulus package, most of it will already be allocated by the time the FCC gets around to finishing its national broadband policy.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are in charge of distributing the $7.2 billion in stimulus funds for broadband. And these distributions will happen in three phases, with the first phase occurring between April and June and the last phase occurring by September 30, 2010.

Meanwhile, the FCC's broadband policy is due to be finished in February 2010, which means two-thirds of the stimulus money will have already been allocated by the time the mapping and policy issues have been defined. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation. Advisers to President Obama have said they would have liked to have had the policies in place before allocating money, but the economic crisis is too severe to wait.

Watchdog groups have expressed concern that money could be wasted without achieving the ultimate goal of improving broadband access, speed, and affordability for all Americans.

But Richards said that this should not take away from the importance of the policy that will be set under these new guidelines.

"Chairman Copps said during the hearing that he has wanted to establish a national broadband policy for years," Richards said. "And it would have been nice to have most of this in place before they started handing out the money. But the policy they are defining now will really be important in terms of setting a roadmap for future regulatory policy. And that is really important."

A freeway overpass connecting two parts of Microsoft's Redmond headquarters has become a well-traveled road for critics of how the federal government is spending its stimulus dollars.

The "Microsoft Bridge," as it has been dubbed, is slated to receive $11 million in stimulus dollars--money that critics say is a waste, but local and state officials have praised as a prudent use of transportation dollars.

The overpass indeed connects two parts of Microsoft's campus. But as proponents point out, it also connects two parts of Redmond's business community with each other and with the local freeway--State Route 520. For its part, Microsoft has pledged to spend $17.5 million, or roughly half of the project's estimated tab.

Plans for the connector are not new. The project has been an on-again, off-again item on the local agenda for more than a decade. It rose back up the list in 2005, after Microsoft agreed to contribute the millions of dollars as part of an expansion plan in the area.

"This overpass has been part of the Bellevue-Redmond transportation agenda since at least 1999," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post, defending the overpass. "It was then, and is now, a long-overdue link to reduce congestion in this rapidly growing urban center, which supports over 44,000 jobs, 600 companies, including major employers like Honeywell, Siemens, Nintendo, and Sears, and over 5,000 homes. "

In announcing 138 state projects due to get federal funding, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire noted that the project met all of the criteria for such projects and would significantly help a growing traffic problem in the area.

"It isn't about Microsoft," she said. "It's about reducing congestion."

For her full response to a question about the project, check out the video, embedded below.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:4482261b-7d99-4e7c-bff9-eb58d22a83b0&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Gov. Gregoire Discusses the 520 Overpass">Video: Gov. Gregoire Discusses the 520 Overpass</a>

WASHINGTON--A diverse group of organizations Tuesday agreed that the criteria for choosing which broadband projects to fund with stimulus dollars should be largely based on the potential for job creation, but they could not agree on the degree of risk the federal government should take in its broadband investments.

The departments of Commerce and Agriculture have a combined $7.2 billion from the stimulus package to dole out for broadband deployment and expect to receive more than 10,000 applications for funding. The departments gathered together a number of different organizations at a public meeting Tuesday to discuss how to distribute those funds effectively and fairly, and how to hold grantees accountable.

The most important criteria, the panelists said, should be a project's potential for job creation. Other items mentioned included timeliness, sustainability, cost, and interoperability. There was dispute, however, over whether the stimulus funds should focus on clear, immediate benefits, or potential long-term results.

Jeannette Wing, assistant director of the computer and information science and engineering directorate at the National Science Foundation, suggested the government should invest not only in projects that will have short-term economic impact but also those that will pay off decades down the road.

"Broadband investments should be a strategic down payment on our future," she said. "Today's students are tomorrow's workforce and tomorrow's customers."

Since the stimulus funding is seen as a down payment on universal broadband access, the program provides a good opportunity to form a broader deployment strategy, said John Muleta, the CEO of M2Z Networks.

"You want some level of diversity to see what will work to reach underserved and unserved communities," he said. "By its very nature, (the stimulus is) trying to do projects that otherwise wouldn't be funded. This is a bit like venture capital where you'll fund 10 ideas to get one that really breaks out."

Others insisted the funding criteria should focus more strictly on jobs.

"We're talking about taxpayer money, we're not here to try experimental projects," said Lisa Scalpone. "This is a one-time jump-start and needs to be viable in the long term."

In either case, panelists said, clear objectives for grantees will make it easier for the government to provide effective oversight of the broadband stimulus funds.

"We're going to have programs that are going to be funded from all different shapes and sizes, and it's important they all have to meet the same goals," said Amina Fazlullah, a media and telecommunications attorney for U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The broadband provisions of the stimulus package included an initial set of criteria for the two departments responsible for the funds to consider, such as whether a project will increase affordability and subscribership, whether it will provide the greatest broadband speeds to the greatest population, and whether it will enhance service for health care delivery and education.

Meeting those goals--not to mention a host of others numerous groups would like to see addressed--means the Commerce and Agriculture departments will be in the business of picking winners and losers, panelists acknowledged.

"There's going to be an enormous amount of subjectivity," Muleta said. "What we have to do is have some discretion for the people developing the program to determine how to mechanize this."

WASHINGTON--President Obama has called health information technology the "low-hanging fruit" of health care reform, but implementing the use of electronic medical records nationwide will be incredibly difficult, experts warned Wednesday, especially without larger health care reforms.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates (PDF) that the use of electronic medical records could save the nation $12.5 billion over 10 years, and other analyses give more optimistic figures.

At a forum here on Wednesday, hosted by the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, health care providers and buyers attested to the improved quality of care and efficiencies that can result from the use of properly implemented electronic medical records. Yet without new policies to incentivize the use of health IT systems, the stimulus funds may go to waste, they said.

"We have an incredibly complex industry that doesn't necessarily want to change," said Joseph Swedish, president and CEO of Trinity Health, a nonprofit health care provider that includes 44 hospitals in its network. "I think the stimulus can prime the pump, but we have to recognize the daunting task ahead of us."

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act directs health care providers to electronically record patients' health information for "biosurveillance and public health" and "medical and clinical research" as part of a "nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information."

However, Swedish and other health care experts said providers will be reluctant to share data--or even use health IT systems in the first place--because of the pay-for-service structure and other institutional characteristics of the health industry.

Coordinators of a federal health care IT initiative have said developing a national health IT network will be extremely difficult and slow going because of the endless number of varying standards for medical health records applied in different states and localities.

Yet Benjamin Sasse, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Wednesday that providers themselves--not a lack of consistent standards--are the biggest roadblock to a nationwide health information exchange.

"The standards problems are absolutely real, but if you want a sticky patient, why would you ever make a patient portable and available to your competitor?" he asked. "Most of the reasons we don't have (health) IT have nothing to do with IT."

Trinity Health, along with Kaiser and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, has one of the nation's largest integrated, single-platform data management systems and is using its repository of information to adopt more evidence-based treatment. However, Swedish said, Trinity is not sharing data with Kaiser or other providers.

"There are a lot of complexities with the sharing of data," he said. "I don't envision in the near term being able to work with others."

Trinity rolled out its health IT network in 2000 and incurred operational costs that greatly exceeded estimates, Swedish said, but also achieved more benefits than anticipated. Its hospitals, for instance, administer emergent medications 40 percent faster, and Trinity's nurses have increased their bedside attendance of patients by 8 percent now that they spend less time on paperwork.

"We have witnessed lowering costs and what we believe is better quality," he said. "We believe the investment is absolutely the right thing to do in the modern world we live in today."

Still, he said, the process took years to implement, the benefits would not have been possible with just the IT--a change in culture and staff processes was also necessary.

The economic structure of the health industry does not only deter providers from sharing information, but also from simply adopting health IT in the first place, Sasse said.

"Health IT is (part of) a much larger debate around payment reform that would provide much higher care than the fee-for-service system does today," he said.

WASHINGTON--Two government agencies have 19 months to distribute $7.2 billion in stimulus funds for broadband deployment projects in all 50 states--and already thousands of potential grant recipients are knocking at their doors.

President Obama's economic stimulus package dictated that all of the money set aside for broadband will have to be allocated to worthy projects by September 30, 2010. To meet that goal, the federal government will need the help of "the best and the brightest," Mark Seifert, one of the people responsible for the broadband funds, said Tuesday.

"I invite you to work very hard--and very fast--to reach our goals," said Seifert, a senior adviser to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency responsible for distributing $4.7 billion in grants for broadband.

The NTIA on Tuesday, in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Agriculture Department, held the first in a series of meetings to engage the public in a discussion about ways to distribute the broadband grants and loans. The agencies decided on this format to solicit public input after receiving more than 2,000 requests for individual meetings from states and other groups interested in the funding.

Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps on Tuesday addressed hundreds of potential applicants for broadband stimulus funds.

(Credit: Stephanie Condon/CNET)

"It's going to have to happen very fast," said Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, an NTIA administrator. "Everyone needs to work together to make sure we do this and we get it right."

Before a crowd of hundreds packed into an auditorium at the U.S. Commerce Department, the agencies announced they are holding six more public meetings--four in Washington, one in Las Vegas, and one in Flagstaff, Ariz.--between March 16 and March 24 to give the public a chance to influence how the broadband grant and loan programs are shaped. The agencies also released on Tuesday a formal request for information (PDF) soliciting input on a range of topics including the role of the states in the grant programs, selection criteria for grant awards, financial contributions from grant applicants, broadband mapping, and benchmarks to evaluate the success of the programs.

The FCC, which is charged with formulating a strategy for nationwide broadband deployment within one year, will also kick off a process of public inquiry for that project at its next public meeting on April 8.

"This will be a truly inclusive process," acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said at the meeting. "The goal of our national strategy must be to bring value-laden, high-speed broadband to all our citizens, no matter who they are or where they live...'All' must mean everyone."

The officials at Tuesday's meeting acknowledged that numerous issues that will impact the grant awarding process remain unclear. For instance, the broadband stimulus funds were expressly approved for "unserved" and "underserved" locations, but those terms remain undefined.

McGuire-Rivera said that these are the sorts of issues the request for information and the public meetings are intended to resolve. In the meantime, the stimulus bill was prescriptive enough that prospective grant recipients "can start working on your grant application as soon as you walk out the door," she said.

The NTIA plans to make grants available in three rounds. The first notice of availability will be published sometime between April and June, with subsequent grant application rounds taking place around October of this year, and then between April and June of 2010. The agency is required by the stimulus bill to award at least one grant per state.

The Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service, which is responsible for distributing $2.5 billion in grants, loans, and loan guarantees for broadband, plans to start making its funds available within the next 60 days. After that first notice of availability, the RUS will have at least two more grant application periods.

As the agencies configure the grant and loan programs, they will be obligated to consult with the states, establish open-access principles, and create a database of all the grant applications. The stimulus bill also set aside $10 million specifically for audits and oversight of the broadband programs.

"It's sort of unusual for (Congress) to set aside money like that," McGuire-Rivera said. "We will be watching these grants very carefully."