BCAP - Broadband Cable Association of Pennsylvania - Government Relations

CABLE FACT:

Cable companies' state-of-the-art broadband network stretches from Philadelphia to Greene to Erie to Wayne counties...and every other county in between.

Issue Briefs

Federal stimulus funds for broadband

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 appropriated $7.2 billion and directed the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications Information Administration and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service to: expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the United States; increase jobs; spur investments in technology and infrastructure; and provide long-term economic benefits. The result is the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP). BTOP will provide grants to fund broadband infrastructure, public computer centers and sustainable broadband adoption projects. BIP will make loans and grants for broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas.

Since 1996, Pennsylvania cable companies alone have spent more than $8 billion to stimulate the Commonwealth's broadband development, with the entire investment coming from those companies' private capital. That ongoing investment and infrastructure buildout is solely to make available broadband services throughout all of Pennsylvania. Broadband cable is available to residents in each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, and in many of our state's rural areas.

Distribution of federal stimulus funds must be administered in a manner so as to not harm the investments and ongoing service deployments of Pennsylvania's broadband cable industry. A successful program must supplement, and not distort, the growing private, competitive market for broadband services.

Programs initiated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act can play a critical role in bringing broadband to the small percentage of Pennsylvania households with no physical access, and overcome other barriers to adoption...such as affordability, the lack of a computer or other equipment needed to connect to the Internet, and low levels of basic "digital literacy."

Awards should be competitively and technologically neutral, so as not to create disincentives for private investment that historically have taken the lead in broadband deployment.