Comm Daily Notebook
NTIA got only 867 applications for the second and final round of the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program, an NTIA spokeswoman confirmed Monday. “The preliminary count is 867 but we are still processing some applications,” the spokeswoman said. “We expect to…
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announce a final count soon.” In round one, NTIA received and reviewed 1,789 applications. Applicants sought funding for all three of the program categories administered by the agency, records show. NTIA received $19 billion in requests in the first round, but only had $1.5 billion to award during the round. NTIA has to hand out $4.7 billion by Sept. 30, 2010, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Analyst Craig Settles said in an interview Monday it will be difficult to say how many applicants gave up and didn’t file in the second round, after trying in the first, until the Rural Utilities Service also releases numbers. “From anecdotal stories, I would say there were a decent number of folks who just gave up in frustration,” Settles said. Potential applicants were troubled that all grants from the first round have yet to be awarded, so they don’t know whether a particular area is eligible for funding, Settles said. Many had questions about how much weight the more than 11,000 challenges from incumbents were being given, as well as the weight assigned recommendations from various governors’ offices, he said. “If you're sitting on the sideline you say why should I bother,” Settles said. “NTIA was set up really to fail, definitely to do poorly,” he said. “The time lines, the volume of dollars, everything was structured in such a way that it was impossible to do well.”