It has been announced that the deadline for grants and loans for broadband in the United States has been extended by a week because of technical problems that occurred following a huge influx of applications.
A grants and loans program to the value of over seven billion dollars that was set up by the United States government has been extended from its original deadline with regards to applications according to a recent report. Applications for grants and loans from the broadband for all fund were meant to be submitted by 14th August. However, the mass of applications that came flooding in resulted in technical problems, and as a result the government has extended the deadline by a week until 20th August.
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has said that applicants that used the online Easygrants system to start the application process will be able to benefit from the deadline extension. However, the deadline for paper applications has now passed and the deadline for these will not be extended. In the meantime more servers have been added to ease the congestion and technical issues with the online system.
The first round of the program involves the allocation of around four billion dollars in loans and grants for the expansion of broadband infrastructure. Those that can apply for the grants and loans include state and local governments as well as companies and organisations. However, it is thought that larger organizations such as Verizon will not be making applications for funding through this program.
The Federal Communications Commission has been focussing heavily on broadband, and is due to create a national broadband plan that can then be present to congress in the early part of next year.
Source – Ciol.com