Broadband stimulus update and next steps in the funding process : Corporate Finance Law Blog

Last week, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) jointly issued a press release with preliminary aggregated information about the applications submitted for the first round of broadband stimulus funding. NTIA and RUS (the “Agencies”) announced that they received approximately 2,170 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding, or approximately seven times the total amount allocated for this round.

As yet, very little information is available about the applications that were filed other than the aggregated data described by the Agencies. The sustainable broadband and public computer programs were more oversubscribed than broadband infrastructure, but demand far exceeds supply in all categories...