According to a joint Sept. 17 announcement by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D) and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), the money, which comes from the U.S. Commerce Department's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will be used to lay more than 1,200 miles of fiber-optic cable across the state.
The cable will be used to link more than a thousand "anchor institutions," including colleges, hospitals, schools and other government buildings, as well as extend service in residential and commercial areas, with a focus on "rural and underserved communities." The announcement also claims that the project will create at least 1,600 jobs in the state.
The grant was awarded to the One Maryland Broadband Network, a coalition of state agencies and private businesses, and the Maryland Department of Information Technology, according to the announcement.
"What it translates to for Southern Maryland is that the funding is going to the state of Maryland, to the Department of Information Technology, and they're the principal applicant, they'll be ones administering the grant for the entire state. And the grant includes fiber for Southern Maryland, all three counties, as well as about 90 data centers being hooked up that are not currently hooked up," said Wayne Clark, executive director of the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland. "… Absolutely this will make it much easier not only for businesses but hospitals, telemedicine, businesses trading on [the Internet internationally], and it will be available within three years."
Drew Van Dopp at the Maryland Broadband Cooperative said it is likely too early to know the details of how resources will be deployed but hailed the grant in a prepared statement.
"My response to how Maryland broadband reviews what this could mean to the citizens and private businesses of Southern Maryland is that our mission is to drive economic development in rural areas by being the backbone partner to our member Internet service providers that provide last-mile services to consumers and businesses. The [federal] grant is funding the construction of new backbone in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties over the next three years, so the reality is the potential for new private-sector service offerings throughout the region," he said.
Del. Sally Y. Jameson (D-Charles), who was instrumental in applying for the grant, said, "I'm so glad we got that" in a second round of stimulus awards, after being turned down the first time. "… It's not going to give us everything that we would have liked it to do, but it will certainly lay the groundwork by bringing it much farther."
High-speed Internet access is an assumption now, Jameson said, and she has received complaints from constituents who say they are told to view bus schedules online or whose children are expected to access the Internet to do their homework.
"And they can't. Who would ever think people can't do that in Charles County?" she asked.
The grant will extend infrastructure, and it is hoped that private companies will take it from there, Jameson said.
"It doesn't solve our last-mile problem, but it gets it closer to where it's needed. … If you can get it to the gate of a community, someone is probably going to be astute enough to think, ‘My God, there's 40 homes there, I could start a little business," Jameson said.
That approach likely will not satisfy residents of Moyaone Reserve neighborhood in Accokeek, which has had particular trouble with access because it spans the border between Charles and Prince George's counties, said Nan Fremont, a member of the Moyaone Association's broadband committee. A different agreement between a service provider and local government governs each side.
The Charles County side of the community of about 150 homes, set back in the woods, isn't due to be served until 2024, Fremont said, and she hopes the stimulus grant will accelerate the process.
"The Internet is not a toy; it is a tool. It should be universally available to everyone," Fremont said. Children no longer can do their homework because they're expected to use the Internet to do it, she said, and parents have been driving their children to the library to take advantage of wireless access in the parking lot.
It may not be cost-effective in the foreseeable future for private companies to provide high-speed access in remoter communities, Fremont said. She thinks this is where the government should step in, she added.
"If you use the analogy for universal service for phone service and also electricity in the last century, neither phone companies nor electric companies wanted to bring service to rural areas. And it took the government to say, ‘Everyone is going to have service, and we're going to make sure that happens.' And that's the only way America got electrified," Fremont said.
While residential access is important, it is crucial that businesses be able to get online quickly and easily, said Eric Franklin, president and CEO of Erimax, an information technology firm based in Dunkirk. He said he is concerned that the grant won't go far enough to help those in secluded areas.
"The concern, I think, is that there's funding there that actually drops this connectivity at the middle-band providers. The last-mile services, it still doesn't speak to it. Really we're reliant on individual business entrepreneurs' efforts to take up and bring the broadband capability to the homeowners and to the businesses," Franklin said.
He also was concerned that, with counties strapped for cash, they would not allocate the matching funds the grant requires, he said.
At their meeting Sept. 28, three Charles County commissioners expressed the opposite concern, that the county would not receive its "fair share" of help under the grant.
Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D) said he has not received any specifics on the plan from DoIT, but that, according to public announcements, 113 institutions would be connected in Prince George's County, 56 in Calvert, 30 in St. Mary's, but only six in Charles, with a location in Mechanicsville having mistakenly been included in that number.
"[Broadband access], I feel, has been a promise of this board since we were sworn in four years ago. … As we near the election this November, I think it's right and appropriate for Charles County citizens in our rural community to be treated fairly and equitably by the administration," Hodge said.
Comcast spokeswoman Alisha Martin, a member of the Maryland Broadband Cooperative, declined to comment on the grant's specifics.
"At this time, it is too early to speculate on any particulars," she wrote in an e-mail.
"We don't share our plans publicly, though our competition would probably love to have that," Verizon representative Melanie Ortel said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Erica Mitrano
Quelle/Source: So Md News, 01.10.2010
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