Broadband Technology Opportunities Program
The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is an approximately $4 billion grant program administered by NTIA to help bridge the technological divide; create jobs; and improve education, health care, and public safety in communities across the country. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, BTOP projects are deploying broadband Internet infrastructure, enhancing and expanding public computer centers, and encouraging the sustainable adoption of broadband service.
See also: NTIA's Recovery Act broadband programs
Related content
Progress towards BTOP Goals: Interim Report on PCC and SBA Case Studies
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).
Broadband Construction Season
While stuck in construction traffic the other day, I thought of the old cliché that there are only two seasons – winter and road construction. But after visiting the Central Valley Independent Network’s (CVIN) offices in Fresno, California this summer, I would add broadband construction as a third season.
For CVIN and all other Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) projects, summer is a time to build. Whether it’s hanging fiber on utility poles or trenching, plowing, and drilling underground, our awardees and their construction crews are busy at work.
Broadband is a world of extremes: it takes heavy-duty, 10-ton equipment to install fiber strands that are as small as a human hair. It takes months and years of hot, sweaty, dust-filled workdays to build a network that will provide massive amounts of data to end users at speeds measured in millionths of a second. It takes hundreds of man-hours, at a pace of 1000 feet per day to install the fiber that will connect our schools and hospitals with resources on the other side of the planet with just the click of a mouse.
Fourteenth Quarterly Status Report to Congress Regarding BTOP
Pursuant to Section 6001(d)(4) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA or Recovery Act) (Public Law No. 111-5), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provides this Quarterly Report on the status of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP or Program). This Report focuses on the Program’s activities from April 1 to June 30, 2012.