BTOP Funding Program Overview

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has allocated over $7 billion to the development of broadband infrastructure in rural and underserved areas in the United States. The US Congress appropriated $4.7 billion to establish a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program for awards to eligible entities to develop and expand broadband services to unserved and underserved areas and improve access to broadband by public safety agencies.

Within the Recovery Act, the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is tasked with administering the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP), which will provide grants for expanding broadband services to unserved and underserved areas.

WiNOG will explore the details of this program and discuss strategies for small-to-medium sized service providers to help them capitalize on this opportunity.

OUTSIDE-IMPACTS Strategy

As the market for Internet & connectivity has matured and evolved into the mainstream, Service Providers are learning that differentiation on the basis of technological knowledge and prowess alone is no longer sufficient in today’s competitive markets.  The days of waiting for the phone to ring are over; the market today requires that we go out, solicit and sell.  Differentiation today requires an evolution towards customer-centric differentiation and relevance.  OUTSIDE-IMPACTS is a framework for evaluating strategic business initiatives.  This session will cover and apply this framework in a real-world scenario for differentiating a service offering in a competitive and commoditized market.

-          (O) Opportunity: Is this a positive present value opportunity? (Does it have IMPACTS?)

o   (I) Idea:

§  What is the idea / industry?

§  Explain the idea / opportunity clearly and succinctly

o   (M) Market:

§  Is the target market large enough to support substantial growth / valuation?

§  How large is the overall market

§  How large is the market segment you are targeting?

·         Provide solid support for your analysis

§  Are there additional opportunities?

o   (P) Positive Present Value:

§  Why does the opportunity generate a positive present value? What is unique?

§  The answer to this should be implicit in other parts of OUTSIDE-IMPACTS.  But, it doesn’t hurt to be explicit

§  Why will you make money?

§  How will you make money?

o   (A) Acceptance:

§  Will customers in the market accept / buy this new product / service?

§  Who is the customer in the target segment? Put yourself in the shoes of the customer

·         How does the customer spend the day

§  Why will they buy your product / service?

·         How much will it cost?

§  How will you get to the customers? Salesforce / Ads?

·         How much will it cost?

o   (C) Competition:

§  Why won’t the value be competed away?

§  What will existing competitors do?

§  What will other new entrants do? How will you respond?

o   (T) Time:

§  Why is this a good time to enter?

§  Why hasn’t the opportunity been taken already?

o   (S) Speed:

§  How quickly can this be implemented?

Good Opportunities have positive IMPACTS

If the Opportunity does not have IMPACTS, then it should not be pursued.

Platypus Q&A with Product Manager Grant Spradling

The Platypus Billing System has been designed to alleviate the billing challenges Service Providers face.  Platypus handles all your billing and collection duties, organizes your customer base, allows web-based customer self-management and more.  Think of Platypus as the central nervous system of your business that creates a single point of entry for data and stores almost everything that you or anyone in your company would need to know about a customer from billing to services to trouble tickets.  Add in a customer web interface that allows customers to self-manage their services, order new services, manage trouble tickets and pay their bills online and you can see how Platypus gives you the tools to help you manage your business better.

Platypus Product Manager, Grant Spradling, will be hosting in interactive 1 hour Q&A to solicit user feedback and to discuss upcoming features and enhancements on the Platypus roadmap.

Understanding Licensed Backhaul

As networks grow, using the 5 GHz band for backhaul applications can create spectrum interference and congestion issues.  Ultimately, the most valuable asset for any WISP is high-power multipoint spectrum.  In the United States, there are currently 2 options available for “high-power backhaul spectrum” – they fall under Part-101 and Part-90 of the FCC rules.  Part 101 has set aside over 4000 MHz of spectrum that can be licensed for backhaul use in the 6, 11, 18 and 23 GHz bands.  Part-90 has set aside 25 MHz of spectrum in the 3.65 GHz band that can be “licensed-lite” for backhaul applications.

WiMAX Advanced Technical Training

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