NTIA Tool Identifies Unserved, Underserved Areas

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The National Telecommunications & Information Administration has posted a mapping tool to identify the unserved and underserved identified by bidders for broadband stimulus money as places where they want government money to deliver broadband.

Incumbent network operators will be checking it out to find out where they may face government-subsidized competition.

Those incumbents will have 30 days to comment on the maps, including making their case if they feel the area should not qualify as unserved or underserved.

An NTIA spokesman said the maps are of areas the bidders, not NTIA, assert as unserved or underserved.

NTIA will start handing out the first tranche of its $4.7 billion in simulus money in November.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.