Incumbents smart to watch stimulus funding carefully

Incumbents choosing not to participate in the scramble for Broadband Stimulus money still need to pay attention to the process and how money is being awarded, since there is the possibility other entities could apply for, and receive, money to build broadband networks in their footprint. Thomas Cohen, partner in the Washington (DC) office of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, Bob Tupper, consulting engineer with RVW Inc., and John Hoover, senior product manager with Tellabs, which sponsored the event, all encouraged incumbents, including telco, cable and wireless service providers, to pay attention to how stimulus money is being allocated. Because the money is being given out based on aggregated census blocks, there is the possibility that a non-incumbent can aggregate part of an incumbent's footprint into an application to meet the requirements for serving rural, remote, unserved or underserved areas, Tupper said. Under those circumstances, an incumbent has an opportunity to refute the claim, he said. Hoover advised incumbents to adopt the "best defense is a good offense" strategy and consider cost-effective ways of upgrading their broadband service through retrofits, overlays and upgrades that don't require massive deployment of fiber, but can incrementally boost bandwidth.