February 6, 2009Re: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – Broadband Component and Rural RegionsDear SAL NAME:We strongly urge Congress and President Obama’s Administration to continue toinclude significant funding for rural broadband infrastructure deployment in the federaleconomic stimulus package. An investment in broadband not only will immediatelygenerate jobs, but it also will measurably enhance America’s global competitiveness,which in turn will attract more capital investment to generate additional jobs. We also propose the attached recommendations and approachto ensure effective and efficient
disbursement of federal funds for rural broadband deployment and adoption. This proposal is based on the experience and track record in California which prepares thestate to partner with the federal government to invest in rural broadband deploymentthat will help ensure the economic vitality of California’s rural regions.The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) in partnership with the state’s ruralregions has invested over $5 million in major projects supporting rural broadbanddemand aggregation and telemedicine, working with 7 regional consortia involving 35of California’s 58 counties. In addition, rural leaders continue to pursue ready projectsto connect K-12 and higher education facilities. We’ve engaged public officials, civicleaders, stakeholders and industry to advance broadband. These efforts have yieldednumerous “shovel ready” projects statewide.The thrust of the demand aggregation projectsis to quantify how much demand exists
that may not have been recognized previously by the marketplace and to identify assetsthat could be used to facilitate deployment that might not have been made available before to providers. Specifically, the projects are tasked to accomplish the following:(a) quantify individual and aggregated demand by prospective anchor tenants, industryclusters, and residential areas, including price sensitivity; (b) map infrastructure andother fixed assets that could be used to help deploy broadband service; (c) simplifycounty and municipal policies; and (d) tap the ingenuity of entrepreneurs in the region.Thus, there is an increasing reliable information base to determine how much publicfunding is required to achieve the goal of ubiquitous rural broadband availability.According to the California Rural Health Policy Council, 92 % of the California’slandmass is rural and has a population of almost 3 million residents. The CaliforniaBroadband Task Force found that almost 50% of rural Californians lack any broadbandaccess, more residents than 16 other states individually. Further, the rural populatedland area that is totally unserved by broadband collectively would be the 37
th
largeststate, or about the size of Kentucky. The 2008 survey by the Public Policy Institute of California (commissioned by CETF and ZeroDivide) found that 51% rural Californianshave a broadband connection, 58% have Internet connection and 65% have computer or laptop at home. However, 77% find the Internet as a very (48%) or somewhat (29%)important source of information in their everyday life—evidencing that there is unmet broadband need and demand in rural California and rural America.Public investments and incentives for rural broadband deployment also need to requiresufficient speeds to accommodate applications today and in the future. Now is not the
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