[1st-mile-nm] Obama Broadband Executive Order

[Richard Lowenberg]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/13/we-can-t-wait-president-obama-signs-executive-order-make-broadband-const

We Can’t Wait: President Obama Signs Executive Order to Make Broadband 
Construction Faster and Cheaper

White House Also Announces 100-Partner “US Ignite” Broadband Initiative

Tomorrow, the President will sign an Executive Order to make broadband 
construction along Federal roadways and properties up to 90 percent 
cheaper and more efficient. Currently, the procedures for approving 
broadband infrastructure projects on properties controlled or managed by 
the Federal Government—including large tracts of land, roadways, and 
more than 10,000 buildings across the Nation—vary depending on which 
agency manages the property. The new Executive Order will ensure that 
agencies charged with managing Federal properties and roads take 
specific steps to adopt a uniform approach for allowing broadband 
carriers to build networks on and through those assets and speed the 
delivery of connectivity to communities, businesses, and schools.

"Building a nationwide broadband network will strengthen our economy 
and put more Americans back to work," said President Obama. "By 
connecting every corner of our country to the digital age, we can help 
our businesses become more competitive, our students become more 
informed and our citizens become more engaged."

The White House is also announcing that nearly 100 partners—including 
more than 25 cities as well as corporate and non-profit entities—will 
join with more than 60 national research universities to form a new 
public-private partnership called “US Ignite.” The US Ignite Partnership 
will create a new wave of services that take advantage of 
state-of-the-art, programmable broadband networks running up to 100 
times faster than today’s Internet. By bringing software developers and 
engineers from government and industry together with representatives 
from communities, schools, hospitals, and other institutions that will 
benefit from faster and more agile broadband options, the partnership 
aims to speed up and increase the development of applications for 
advanced manufacturing, medical monitoring, emergency preparedness, and 
a host of other services. These applications will improve services to 
Americans and drive job creation, promote innovation, and create new 
markets for American businesses.

Executive Order

The Executive Order (EO) will require the Departments of Agriculture, 
Commerce, Defense, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs as 
well as the US Postal Service to offer carriers a single approach to 
leasing Federal assets for broadband deployment. The EO also requires 
that available Federal assets and the requirements for leasing be 
provided on departmental websites, and it will require public tracking 
of regional broadband deployment projects via the Federal Infrastructure 
Projects Dashboard (permits.performance.gov ). In addition, the 
Executive Order will direct departments to help carriers time their 
broadband deployment activities to periods when streets are already 
under construction—an approach that can reduce network deployment costs 
along Federal roadways by up to 90 percent.

US Ignite

Today, more and more of the Nation’s broadband infrastructure is 
capable of moving huge amounts of information quickly and in novel, 
programmable ways, but software developers have been unable to create 
applications that take full advantage of this new capacity—in part 
because potential user communities such as factories and hospitals have 
lacked the means to coordinate their needs with developers capabilities. 
The new US Ignite Partnership (www.us-ignite.org) will create a national 
network of communities and campuses with ultra-fast, programmable 
broadband services, operating at speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.  
This network will become a test-bed for designing and deploying 
next-generation applications to support national priorities areas such 
as education, healthcare, energy, and advanced manufacturing. US Ignite 
will challenge students, startups, and industry leaders to create a new 
generation of applications and services that meet the needs of local 
communities while creating a broad range of job and investment 
opportunities.  This initiative will open up countless new opportunities 
for households and small businesses, helping them experience the 
economic and community benefits of next-gen applications while 
demonstrating a path for other communities to join.

Among the commitments being announced today by participants in the new 
partnership:

- Industry partners offer support to partnership: Global industry 
leaders including Cisco, Juniper, NEC, and Hewlett-Packard are offering 
programmatic and in-kind support to communities while carriers, like 
Verizon and Comcast, are announcing new pilot cities on their network 
that will participate in US Ignite.
New tools for communities: Non-profits, like the Mott Foundation, are 
working with the partnership to deliver new community programs, such as 
hack days and startup weekends, to accelerate the transition these 
applications into the marketplace.

- National coalition of universities: The National Science Foundation 
(NSF) is committing $20 million to prototype and deploy new technologies 
to advance the development of ultra-high-speed, programmable broadband 
networks. That is in addition to the ~$40 million that NSF has invested 
over four years in the Global Environment for Networking Innovations 
(GENI) project, which currently connects more than a dozen universities 
with next-generation broadband connections. Built with the technological 
contributions of more than 300 NSF-funded researchers at more than 60 
universities, GENI is already serving as a virtual laboratory and 
testbed for next-generation applications in healthcare, energy 
efficiency, education, and other national priority areas.

- Next-gen apps challenge to spur innovation: NSF and Mozilla 
Foundation, with support from the Department of Energy, are announcing a 
$500,000 design competition to develop applications for high-speed 
communities around the country.
Building on current broadband investments: Departments of Commerce and 
Agriculture are announcing their support for US Ignite with over six 
carriers that received funding for expanding their broadband networks 
while creating new community-based services.

- Supporting military families and communities with new applications: 
Department of Defense is connecting military families on base with new 
US Ignite services, while creating new research opportunities to 
students at West Point. HHS’s Beacon Community Program, starting with 
the Mayo Clinic, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural 
Healthcare Pilot Program are partnering with US Ignite to provide new 
healthcare applications, such as remote surgical theatre and patient 
monitoring.

- Additional details on these public and private commitments, and on 
the participants in today’s activities, are detailed in a Fact Sheet 
HERE: 
www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/broadband_fact_sheet_06_13_2012.pdf

Building on Success

These announcements build on past successes and the President’s 
commitment to deploying high-speed broadband networks as a nationwide 
foundation for sustained economic growth and prosperity.  Broadband 
deployment programs already underway include:

- NTIA’s Recovery Act projects are increasing broadband access in 
communities across the country, with more than 56,000 miles of networks 
providing broadband access to more than 8,000 schools, libraries, 
hospitals, and public safety entities.

- USDA’s Rural Utilities Service is currently on target to complete 
over $3 billion in Recovery Act investments ensuring that rural 
communities and anchor institutions are connected to high-speed 
broadband networks.
By taking full advantage of the latest broadband technologies as they 
evolve, the United States can continue in its role as a global leader 
while strengthening its economy, building new industries and creating 
jobs.


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Richard Lowenberg
1st-Mile Institute
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110 / 505-603-5200
www.1st-mile.com   rl at 1st-mile.com
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