Eighteenth Quarterly Status Report to Congress Regarding BTOP

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provides this Quarterly Report on the status of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP or Program). This Report focuses on the Program’s activities from April 1 to June 30, 2013. In 2009 and 2010, NTIA invested approximately $4 billion in 233 BTOP projects benefitting every state, as well as five territories and the District of Columbia. As of June 30, 2013, 163 projects remained in active status, and 61 projects had completed their project activities.

This Quarterly Report focuses on four areas of Program implementation and project oversight:

  • Status and progress of broadband projects and Program expenditures. From April through June 2013, NTIA’s broadband grant recipients continued to make strong progress toward meeting or exceeding the Program’s FY13 goals in areas such as building or expanding fiber-optic networks, opening new PCCs, training to drive broadband adoption, and adding new broadband subscribers. This quarter, grant recipients deployed more than 12,200 network miles, bringing the total number of miles to more than 105,000 and exceeding the FY13 goal. This quarter, grant recipients have connected more than 3,600 community anchor institutions, which is an increase of 26 percent from last quarter and brings the total number of institutions connected to more than 17,000 across 44 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia. Through June 2013, 65 BTOP grant recipients have installed more than 44,000 new workstations, exceeding the FY13 goal, in Public Computer Centers (PCCs) across 38 states, one territory, and the District of Columbia. Grant recipients installing workstations also continue to develop and implement training programs and educational courses. During the quarter, PCCs provided 1.5 million hours of training to 350,000 users. Through June 2013, Sustainable Broadband Adoption (SBA) grant recipients have reported more than 613,000 households and 5,000 businesses subscribed to broadband services, exceeding the FY 13 goal. Many of the individuals received digital literacy training through local educational institutions. During the third quarter of FY13, grant recipients spent more than $229 million in federal grant funds. These funds were matched by grant recipient contributions of more than $55 million. Cumulatively, federal outlays for the Program totaled $3 billion through June 30, 2013, representing 80 percent of total obligated federal funds, while total grant recipient matching contributions exceeded $1.1 billion.
  • Supporting initiatives, including the State Broadband Initiative (SBI) mapping and capacity-building efforts. ASR Analytics has been developing reports from the visits to 15 PCC and SBA sites and began site visits for 12 infrastructure grant recipients
  • Monitoring, grants administration, and closeout efforts for broadband projects and the results of those efforts.
  • Program communications supporting outreach with and among BTOP stakeholders.

Eighteenth Quarterly Status Report to Congress Regarding BTOP