2010 Buyers Guide - Broadband Properties

FTTH CONFERENCE COVERAGE
Highlights of the Houston
Fiber-to-the-Home Conference
Speakers at the September 2009 FTTH Conference shared
their experiences building and operating fiber-to-the-home
systems and explained why FTTH is critical to the future of
the United States.
A BBP Staff Report
RUS Official: United States Needs
A Next-Gen Network
The United States cannot maintain
world leadership without a
next-generation broadband infrastructure,
a Department of Agriculture
official told the FTTH Conference. Jessica
Zufolo, deputy administrator of the
USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS),
said in a keynote address that there were
many challenges and cost barriers to providing
universal access to high-speed facilities
as envisioned in the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA),
that the high costs of rural investment
had deterred some carriers, but that the
investment was critical for the country.
Zufolo cited a report from the USDA’s
Economic Research Service (discussed in
the December 2008 issue of this magazine)
showing that employment growth
and earnings were higher in areas that
obtained earlier access to broadband.
Though RUS programs are technology
neutral, Zufolo said, more than
90 percent of the broadband loans the
agency has made in the last two years
have been for fiber to the home. More
than $500 million will be available
for rural broadband in this year’s farm
bill, in addition to the funds available
through the broadband stimulus
program. In fact, RUS has become the
seventh-largest bank in the United
States, she said, and is an extremely costeffective
loan administrator.
Zufolo said she saw the agency’s mission
as similar to that of its predecessor,
the Rural Electrification Administration
(REA), in the 1930s. The REA was able
to stimulate economic activity in areas
badly hit by the Depression.
Despite these historical parallels, the
broadband stimulus program currently
under way is an “unprecedented project,”
Zufolo said, due to its scale and timetable.
She said the agency had learned a great
deal from the first funding round (which
was oversubscribed by a factor of seven
and for which awards have not yet been
made) and planned to make changes in
the second funding round. Definitions of
such statutory terms as “remote,” “rural,”
“unserved” and “underserved” were controversial
and may be reviewed. “Everything
is on the table,” Zufolo said.
Zufolo encouraged all audience
members to work with RUS in making
Although the RUS is technology neutral, most
of its recent broadband loans have financed
fiber-to-the-home projects.
broadband universally affordable and accessible
throughout the United States.
Large Carriers and
the Broadband Stimulus
Program
In a separate panel discussion, Eric
Reed of Verizon and Kathleen Franco
of AT&T discussed the extensive broadband
infrastructure investments made by
their companies, neither of which has applied
for broadband stimulus funding.
Both speakers said they supported
the objectives of the stimulus program,
as long as public funds were directed to
unserved and underserved areas, rather
than adding competition in areas already
well served by broadband.
Reed discussed the need to encourage
broadband adoption, another goal
of the broadband stimulus program. He
said a large percentage of U.S. residents
had access to broadband but did not use
it, either because they could not afford
it, because they were intimidated by the
technology or because they required
more education.
To promote broadband adoption,
Franco suggested extending the Universal
Service Fund’s Lifeline program to
cover broadband for low-income people,
and extending the USF high-cost program
to cover broadband. BBP
48 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | November/December 2009