Posted by Barlow Keener

Technorati Tags: FCC,NTIA,Cisco,Alcatel-Lucent,FTTH,Fiber,Recovery Act,BTOP

On Friday, July 26, 2009, the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) granted a “limited waiver” for the Buy America restriction in the  Recovery Act covering certain types of equipment that may be required for broadband projects.  The NTIA is responsible for overseeing the process of delivering $4.7 billion in stimulus funding [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Technorati Tags: FCC,NTIA,Recovery Act,Buy America,Broadband

The Recovery Act included a “Made in America” requirement for all $787 billion of stimulus funding. Section 1605 of the Act provides that in a “public work” all “manufactured goods used in the project” must be “produced in the United States.” A Federal agency is authorized to waive the requirement if [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Technorati Tags: NTIA,ARRA,Recovery Act,National Broadband Plan,Recovery.gov

On May 18, 2009, NTIA submitted the first required quarterly progress
report to Congress on getting the Recovery Act funding out the door. Without a press release or press conference, NTIA “quietly” (a word GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham used) explained to Congress that the first tranche of broadband [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Technorati Tags: FCC,National Broadband Plan,ARRA
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act ("ARRA”) appropriated $7.2 billion for various broadband projects.  The primary goals of the ARRA broadband provisions are 1) to increase broadband penetration for the unserved, both rural and urban, 2) to increase broadband adoption for the “underserved,” and 3) to deliver new jobs.   The USDA’s [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

While visiting Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science this week, President Obama signed the historic “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” For the telecom industry, as well as other sectors of the economy, the Recovery Act presents the opportunity for obtaining billions of dollars of grants and loans and delivering jobs and hope to the economy.  [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Technorati Tags: Google Android,T-Mobile G1,Open Mobile,Open Source
Yesterday Google announced that the Android code was officially “open source.”   Today, T-Mobile started selling the G1 smart-phone in the U.S.   The T-Mobile G1 phone uses the Google Android operating system.   I think that today will be viewed historically as a “time shift” for mobile and mobile computing.   Why?  [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

On July 23, 2008, a new 911 statute was entered into law.  The “New and Emerging Technologies (NET) 911 Improvement Act of 2008” (the NET 911 Act) requires the FCC to enact rules implementing the Act’s provisions within 90 days of the effective date of the legislation, or October 21, 2008.  The legislation was designed [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

On September 17, 2007, only 10 days after the Pulvermedia’s FMC conference in Chicago where Sprint discussed its future femtocell plans, Sprint formerly announced that it would immediately start offering its AIRAVE femtocell solution in Denver and Indianapolis.  Sprint included a cool marketing video about AIRAVE and femtocells on the Sprint web site. While two trials [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Femtocells were all the rage at PulverMedia’s FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) Conference in Chicago last week.     One carrier in the U.S., Sprint, is leading the pack.   As of today, there are no femtocell rollouts in any geography.  There are a few trials, some announced and others not.   Telefonica, as reported in WSJ last week (9/6/2007), is [...]

Posted by Barlow Keener

Femtocells are going to move fast in the coming 12 months.  Wireless carriers will push the residential gateway from zero units to millions.  On August 13, 2007, Xchange Magazine reported that In-Stat is projecting that by 2011 there will be 40 million femtocells in use and 101 million users of femtocells.   Femtocells are micro cell phone [...]