City Wants Proposals for Closing the Broadband Gap

We mentioned last week that the city is seeking proposals for stimulus-fund projects that will help close the gap in broadband access across the five boroughs. Here are some more details on the two Requests for Information the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications issued earlier this month.

The content of the R.F.I.s is pretty much the same, except one is aimed at broadband service providers, and the other is aimed at nonprofits and other agencies with which the city might form public-private partnerships to bring affordable broadband to low-income New Yorkers. (According to the documents, which you can find here, a study conducted in 2006 and 2007 found that there was a roughly 28-percent gap in the broadband-adoption rate between low-income and moderate- to high-income households, and that this gap would not become significantly narrower until at least 2012 unless programs for increased broadband adoption were implemented.)

The R.F.I.s state that the city intends to develop programs targetting public school students and their families, under-employed and unemployed adults, and adults over the age of 50, and that the programs would include the following core components:

• Affordable broadband service
• Affordable computer hardware/software
• Digital literacy training (customized to meet each segment/group’s specific needs)
• Ongoing technical support (by phone and/or in person and ideally offered in multiple languages prevalent in New York City)
• Marketing and awareness efforts

Additionally:

[T]he City seeks to include a 6^th component – “value demonstration” - in the programs. The City defines the “value demonstration” component as innovative delivery via broadband of vital services to program participants in critical areas such as education, employment and healthcare. Examples of such services include access to educational content and distance learning, online training programs to enhance workforce readiness, online tools and services to support job search, and enhanced access to health-related information and healthcare services. The primary objectives of this component are to 1) demonstrate to program participants that broadband adoption can have an important impact on their lives by ensuring they have access to meaningful services and content, and 2) identify innovative ways in which the City can leverage broadband technology to deliver enhanced services to its citizens.

The stimulus bill has set aside a total of $4.7 billion for broadband expansion under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Of those funds, $250 million will be made available for in-home broadband adoption programs, and at least $200 million will be made available for technology upgrades at "public computing centers" (libraries, senior centers, community colleges, etc.). By July 1, the National Telecommuncations and Information Administration, which oversees BTOP, is expected to issue a set of grant application guidelines for the program.

Nick Sbordone, a spokesman for DoITT, said the R.F.I. responses would prepare the city with ideas about workable broadband programs by the time the guidelines are released.

"We want to be able to hit the ground running, so when these funds become available, we have a pretty solid idea of what some of the best practices are in terms of providing these services," he said.

Responses to the R.F.I.s are due this Friday, June 26.