The Pew Charitable Trusts has begun publishing memos that will be useful for state broadband offices as they beef up staff to ensure state broadband grant funds are not wasted and track whether states are awarding grants to proposed projects in a way that advances various state’s goals in building a bridge across the digital divide.
One memo focuses on how allowing providers to object to applications can promote accountability. The second memo examines how state broadband offices can use scoring metrics to evaluate grant applications.
The Challenge Process
The first memo begins noting that by “providing a system for existing high-speed [I]nternet providers to raise concerns about grant applications, (it) can help state broadband offices ensure that public funds are not tapped multiple times for the same project or awarded to areas without sufficient need.”
That can be done through the “challenge process,” which allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to challenge an application if the challenger can demonstrate that they already provide service in a grant application area, have started network construction in that area, or have plans to do so.
The memo boils down four summary points that are “key features from a variety of states.”
Read more• Challenge processes can be an important control to prevent public subsidies from being awarded to areas that are already receiving equivalent service or will receive equivalent service within a set period (e.g., 12 months). The challenge process can also help prevent a project from inappropriately receiving duplicative state, local, and/or federal funding.
• States can require providers to participate in the state’s data collection and mapping efforts in order to engage in the challenge process.
• The documentation required for a valid challenge varies among states, and can include shape files, address-level service information, service speed validation, and a signed affidavit attesting to the service. If allowed by state code, the data collected in the challenge process may be used by the state to update its maps.
• Notably, the challenge process can also refer to objections and evidence submitted by residents and communities to challenge the designated eligibility of a given...