Applicants for the federal government’s $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds must submit their paperwork by Aug. 14. That’s leaves just more than a week to finish a packet filled with detailed requirements and others open to interpretation. Providers, organizations and other entities seeking broadband money have had little time to fill out the grant and loan documents and as they do, they need facts. Where should they build new networks? How many people in those areas would then buy into broadband? Would the results be worth the investment of time and money?
Pitney Bowes’ Business Insight (PBBI) division, which used to be Mapinfo, runs a database that answers those questions, and more. In a matter of weeks, the company beefed up its software to help operators complete their stimulus applications. PBBI now is helping its service provider customers do all of that. Learn more, in this edited Q&A, about the challenges operators are facing and what’s next, once the Aug. 14 deadline passes. xchange’s Business & Regulatory Editor, Kelly Teal, spoke with Steve Seabury, PBBI’s senior product manager, and Larry Martin, COO of the Gadberry Group, a data provider that partners with PBBI.
What did you do to prepare your existing databases for stimulus-application use?
SS: Most of the database users are existing customers of ours, so they have the basis for running a lot of the analysis themselves. What needed to be added to complete the broadband application were some very specific elements at the block level, which is emerging standard and trend for demographic analysis. Most specifically, we needed to provide at the national block level, household counts, population counts, population density, as well as an indicator of whether the areas in a specific block were rural, urban or some other. Those components allow the providers to complete the requirements, in terms of maps and reports, to seek funding.
Explain what you mean by ‘block level.’
SS: The standard for demographics has traditionally been data at the block group level. There are approximately 210,000 block groups across the U.S., from Census-assigned geography. Contrast that to blocks, where there are approximately 8.2 million blocks across the U.S. So it’s a much more refined, much smaller geography, much more difficult to analyze and understand and appreciate, but also premium in the sense that there’s a tremendous amount of insight that can be gained.
How exactly is the Gadberry Group helping service providers when it comes to the broadband stimulus applications?
LM: For this opportunity, which emerged very suddenly and required a pretty quick response, we were able to deliver the block-level demographic data. And we were able to create some new, unique elements that were called for in the stimulus application.
One was the definition of census blocks as rural; that required a pretty significant investment of time to digest and interpret the application’s requirements. We did that very quickly and produced that new element, which is going to be very critical.
