Stimulus Stories: Level 3's rare carrier win all about extending the middle mile

Count Level 3 as one of the few established telecom service providers to apply for -- and this week win -- federal broadband stimulus funding, with a pragmatic goal not of opening up broad new fiber vistas but rather extending its existing network and services where it makes business sense. But it demonstrates how an established service provider, and not just new broadband entrants, can take advantage of stimulus funding to both move forward laudable goals of serving rural or other remote areas while also advancing their core business strategy.

"What we submitted was something that could help achieve the goals of the federal stimulus plan but also made sense for Level 3 as a business," said Paul Savill, senior vice president of product management for Level 3, in an interview. "It didn't drag us into a whole new type of business and it was something that fit within our core competency and leveraged assets we already had deployed in the field." The proposal that Level 3 submitted, and for which it ultimately won $13.7 million in NTIA funding (which it will match with $4.2 million of its own funds), will be used to build 47 new access points to its existing nationwide broadband network in six states: California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas. The middle mile project will open up access points to other carriers and users at speeds starting at 50 Mbps on up to 40 Gbps.