House Subcommittee Schedules Broadband Oversight Hearing

According to a report, the House Communications Subcommittee has scheduled a Sept. 10 broadband oversight hearing.

A push e-mail from OPASTCO, the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, said Thursday that the 10 a.m. hearing would look at implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband stimulus portion, including the rules set up by NTIA and the USDA for handing out its $7.2 billion in grant and loan money, and the possibility of changing those rules for subsequent rounds of funding.

NTIA has said the plan is for three rounds of funding. Finalists in the first round will be announced within the next two weeks.

The Subcommittee online calendar does not yet make mention of the hearing, but Congress does not reconvene until next week.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.