Commerce COMPETES Report: BTOP is Building Infrastructure for the 21st Century

The Department of Commerce released “The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States.” Part of the report explores the federal role in providing a 21st century infrastructure and highlights Administration efforts already underway, including NTIA’s BTOP program, which is expanding broadband access and adoption in communities across the country.

These projects are already having a positive impact on the lives of Americans: new public computer centers are open, free computer classes and job-trainings are underway, and infrastructure projects are under construction. Already, grantees in NTIA’s BTOP program say that they have deployed or upgraded more than 29,000 miles of broadband infrastructure and installed more than 24,000 workstations in public computer centers. In the last quarter, grantees provided more than 755,000 hours of training to around 220,000 participants. And grantees say that their programs have already led to a total of more than 230,000 new broadband subscribers.

Broadcasting&Cable emphasizes that the report says “techniques such as improvements in spectrum efficiency, increases in network density through cell site construction, and offloading traffic to wired networks will not be sufficient to allow capacity to keep up with demand," though it added that being more efficient with spectrum "can" be part of the solution. In other words, the report said, wireless carriers won't be able to handle demand unless they have access to "additional parts of the spectrum." It called "vital" the Federal Communications Commission's planned reallocation of broadcast spectrum -- currently awaiting congressional approval of the ability to pay broadcasters to exit -- and indicated it would be transferring the spectrum to "more efficient use."