Broadband Technology Opportunities Program

“With their own laptops, they can do their homework anytime. And then, all of a sudden, you see the homework, you see the projects being done, and the scientific research symposiums that they’re applying to. You see them taking it a little bit further with the scholarship applications.” – MESA Director, Skyline Community College, CA (Foundation for California Community Colleges partner)

In 2010, as part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), NTIA awarded more than $450 million in matching grants to establish or upgrade public computer centers and initiate innovative broadband adoption programs in underserved communities. Four years later, that investment has resulted in more than 3,000 new or improved public computer centers and produced 600,000 new household broadband subscriptions.

These grants complement the $3.4 billion in infrastructure investments from NTIA that have enabled BTOP grant recipients to connect more than 21,000 community anchor institutions with ultra-fast broadband, including 2,400 medical and health care providers, more than 1,300 libraries, and 8,000 K-12 schools.  BTOP has provided a significant down-payment on President Obama’s ConnectED initiative to link all schools to high-speed Internet by 2018.

“Without broadband, they can't get jobs, and it's as simple as that.” – Georgetown Job Center Coordinator (Delaware Department of Libraries BTOP PCC Project)

In 2010, as part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), NTIA awarded more than $200 million in matching grants to establish or upgrade public computer centers (PCCs) throughout the United States.  More than 2,000 of those centers are operated by public libraries, from Maine to Arizona.  These grants complement the $3.4 billion in infrastructure investments that have allowed BTOP grant recipients to connect more than 1,300 libraries nationally with ultra-fast broadband, providing a significant down-payment on President Obama’s ConnectED initiative.     

On September 20, 2010, the Department of Interior National Business Center’s Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD) on behalf of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded a task order to ASR Analytics, LLC to obtain services to complete an Evaluation Study of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The following are 8 out of 15 ASR Analytics case studies on NTIA's Public Computer Center and Sustainable Broadband Adoption grants. The remaining ASR reports will be released in the months to come.