With $7.2 billion set aside by the Obama administration to increase broadband penetration in the United States ($6.4 billion of that is for deployments), the industry has a fair bit of soul searching to do to find the best pockets of opportunity while completing the federal mandate of creating jobs. Infrastructure giant Alcatel-Lucent has launched a comprehensive program for its carrier customers to help them do just that. Guiding principle? Community.
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| Alcatel-Lucent's Rich Wonders |
“This is about showing that jobs will be created and sustained, and you need to show that the project you’re seeking funding for is a sustainable venture,” Rich Wonders, vice president of strategic marketing at ALU, told xchange. “Jobs fall into two buckets – the ones that are created from the building of the network, which are near-term jobs, and then the jobs created by having the broadband, which are long-term and the more interesting bucket.”
ALU estimates that for every 1 percent increase in broadband penetration, just a shade under 300,000 jobs are created. “Industries are able to come to where they weren’t able to before, and there’s more opportunity in things like education services and healthcare.”
Focus on Community Benefits
Wonders said that the winners of the funding will be those that inherently understand what the government is trying to do.
“Given the competitive nature of this – so many companies seeking this limited number of funds – you have to differentiate for the reviewers, who are not experts in broadband, with a strong stakeholder plan,” Wonders explained. “The process is such that all the applications for funding look the same – you’re applying for money to build out broadband. But if you say, ‘I’ve got four community applications to do this, this, this and this, and here’s an idea of the projects this will enable,’ that will create the most jobs and provide the most community benefit.”
Therefore, the solutions carriers should offer should include not just wireless or wireline access and a full suite of backhaul and transport, but also community applications packages.
“There are applications for distance learning, health care, public safety and more that turn a broadband network into something that drives community value rather than simply gives consumers fast downloads of YouTube,” Wonders said. “We can show them the applications that they’d see elsewhere – gaming, video, Facebook. But those aren’t what they care about. They care about things like telemedicine, the ability to do remote diagnostic and surgery. This is why we want to drive broadband further out.”
