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FOR COUNCIL NCIL A Date: 02:=1903/01/2010 Item No.: Item Description: Report on Broadband Stimulus Funding 1 BACKGROUND 2 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly called the Federal Stimulus Plan, has grants available provides grantee for deploying broadband infrastructure through the Broadband 4 Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP). The purpose of the BTOP grant is to increase broadband penetration rougboginto -tense and -art. Iersevveft -areas t>1 _the United States,-an4l4o- a1se to enhance • broadband capacity at public computer learning centers and to a ditio zaliy promote sustainable broadband projects. The U.S Department of Commerce through the National Telecommunications and s Information Administration (NTIA) agency has been charged with g policy guidelines and ✓ applietttion proe- et1ures . toree-eive tcntf- revie}r app c aims: and +a-the distribution of distribute $4.7 ,0 billion to affectfor these programs. 11 The STOP grant program originally provided three rounds of funding. with Round 1 that was completed 12 in 2009 with awards still to be distributed. Round 2 was announced in January 2010 with the application 13 period between February 15th and closing March 15th, 2010. Round 3 has been cancelled. Round I 14 locured011 unserved and underserved areas and Round 2 focuses on._Mmiddle,_Mtnile£_ community i s tlnfrastructure the rfbti opening _up the grants to _ �;..._ urban/ suburban areas, REPORT On January 22, 2010 the Department of Commerce published the Notice of Fund Availability for the 1 s second round of the BTOP grant process to award $2.35 billion through the NTIA. .These funds -anal ,s diieeted -that these -hinds will be awarded by September 30, 2010. In thine second round the NTIA has 20 adopted a "comprehensive communities" approach as its top priority in awarding infrastructure grants, 21 focusing on middle mile broadband projectscommunity infrastructure that connect key community 2:: anchor institutions — such as libraries, hospitals, community colleges, universities, and public safety 23 institutions. 24 25 The City of Roseville manages an established technology partnership with 19 metro area municipalities and service organizations including fire service districts and a watershed management district. 27 Collectively the group is called Metro -INET to identify the transitive relationship that has developed 28 amongst the participants of the network. Metro -INET is a communications network comprised of 67 2 public facilities located within 4 metro counties. Of these facilities, 39 are police and fire stations s:. making Metro -INET one of the largest public safety networks in the State of Minnesota. Currently the s agencies of Metro -INET rely almost exclusively on the use of the Comcast provided Institutional 32 Network (INET) to provide the facility network interconnections necessary to cost share information • technology services. But -while the current-The INET is nearly all fiber based, however. it does not reach to all facilities within the Metro -INET. Most of these unserved facilities are fire stations that are a • critical component of the Metro -INET public safety network. Additionally recent changes in cable regulations have brought into question the requirement of cable operators to provide services such as intuitional networks. This uncertainty makes it difficult to develop long range technology plans given an unknown variable for interconnection costs. With 67 facilities on the network it is reasonable to expect that absent the INET we would need to lease service lines. The -the annual connection costs for leased Page 1 of 3 ..... ............. _ ............ Formatted: Centered