Peter Orne Wireless Government Subscribe to Newsletter Tell a Friend Print this Page 07/24/2008 Funding Rural Broadband Wireless: Alvarion Achieves "Buy American" Status for Its Mobile WiMAX Solutions The Wireless Government Report puts a special focus on the growing amount of federal funding for broadband-wireless infrastructure that is available to state and local governments. At the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Washington, DC, contributor Michael Paddock of Grants Office hosted a panel with representatives from Grants.gov and the USDA on applying for these funds. At that session, Jacki M. Ponti-Lazaruk, Asst. Administrator for Telecommunications with the USDA's Rural Development Utilities Programs, noted that more than $6-billion has been invested through the telcom program since 2001 — "to ensure that infrastructure is upgraded and ready to provide the types of services rural America needs." One of those services is soon to be mobile WiMAX. Earlier this month, Alvarion announced that it had received the USDA’s first WiMAX "Rural Development Acceptance" and “Buy American” status for FCC licensed frequencies, allowing operators to use federal rural broadband loan funds to purchase and deploy Alvarion’s WiMAX solutions in the 2.3 GHz WCS and 2.5 GHz BRS/EBS bands. The achievement for Alvarion is significant, and it opens the way for operators and even communities with the appropriate licenses that want to deploy mobile WiMAX to do so. “It could be very small deployments, or certain cities or municipalities, or bigger regional areas,” says Ashish Sharma, Vice President of Corporate Market Development for Alvarion. “When you look at the GSM world, there are some 200 operators in the world, so there could turn out to be a lot of regional operators to fulfill the demand for broadband. There's not just a huge demand for residential service but for businesses as well.” Sharma mentioned some Alvarion customers that are deploying 802.16e solutions around North America: AT&T Alascom in Alaska, TDS Telecom in Wisconsin, and Digicel Group in the Caribbean. Digicel, for example, has an existing operational GSM footprint in 23 markets and is using mobile WiMAX as its next-generation broadband technology. W2i watched closely the effort in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which partnered with Clearwire to deploy a mobile-WiMAX network, so I asked what Sharma thinks about government, municipalities and communities applying for federal funds to implement mobile WiMAX solutions for themselves. “I do think that cities have a plan, because they own the spectrum," he said. "Whether they do it themselves or with an operator, that's a question that remains to be seen, but I do believe the cities want to leverage into this. This is a standardized technology where these cities can gain from a global economy of scale and from an open ecosystem.” Alvarion needed to provide USDA with detailed testimonials from different customers who have used the equipment in a commercial setting. At the same time, the "Buy American" designation does not constitute a technical endorsement. “Our Agency does not conduct testing of equipment,” said Norberto Esteves, Chief, Technical Support Branch of the Rural Development Telecommunications. It does provide listing requirements the manufacturer is expected to meet. (See also General Application Procedures and Wireless Networks.) Alvarion meets the “Buy American” requirement designated by the Office of the US Trade Representative because it is on the list of “eligible countries” for the RUS Telecommunications Program (along with Mexico and Canada). This designation goes back to the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from 1994, which amended the ''Buy American'' Provision of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. 'Under the amendment, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is authorized to determine which countries (''eligible countries'') are eligible to have their products receive the same treatment as manufactured and unmanufactured products produced in the United States. So far the Office of the United States Trade Representative has designated the following countries as "eligible countries" for the Rural Development Telecommunications Program: Canada, Mexico, and Israel.' back Related Items: • York County, PA • USDA Makes $8.9M in Grants Available for Broadband • Wireless Washtenaw Pushing Ahead with Pilots • 4th Digital Inclusion Roundtable: Summary Comments No records were found. Post new comment: Only registered users can add comments. Please Log-in

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