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Friday, June 25, 2021

Youre reading the Benton Institute for Broadband & Societys Weekly Digest, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) broadband stories of the week. The digest is delivered via e-mail each Friday.

This week, guest authorHeather D. Mills of CTC Technology & Energy gives usinsight into the new Broadband Infrastructure Program that we introduced last month inNTIA Has Millions for Broadband Infrastructure

Round-Up for the Week of June 21-25, 2021

On May 19, 2021, the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) releasedrulesfor the Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP). The highly anticipated rules contained a few surprises (a recommended, butvoluntary10 percent match) and at least a few non-surprises (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund areas are not eligible unless you are traversing them with middle mile). The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) also outlined how grant applications will be scored, prioritized, and ranked in order to make award decisions. If you came away a little confused about how your point score relates to the programs stated priorities, and possibly reflecting that you might have better luck applying for admission to an Ivy League school despite having terrible grades, you werent the only one.

Our team at CTC Technology & Energy spent some time analyzing the scoring and prioritization processes based on the NOFO. While we believe that NTIA will likely make some clarifications to smooth out some inconsistencies, our below explanation and example will hopefully help you position your application for a high-priority review with a high score.

Here is the quick (and dirty) explanation of the general scoring and prioritization schema:

But first, lets set a few things straight:

The Administrative and Eligibility Reviewis the easy part of the scoring process. The review team will simply be confirming that the applicants are eligible to apply, that their application is complete (meaning it appears to have all the required elements), and that the documentation, narrative, and budget justification are responsive to the basic programmatic elements of the application requirements. In other words, make sure you have created a list and checked it twice. An incomplete application is not an immediate disqualification, but it may potentially put your application in peril if you happen to miss a request from the NTIA review team for missing information. You will only have seven calendar days to reply with responsive materials unless they give you more time. Indeed, failure to remedy any deficiencies when requested in the time allotted is cause for the NTIA to deny your application.

In the Merit Review, your application will be scored on a scale of 0 to 100 points. Those points are derived from the reviewers analysis of the project purpose and benefits (up to 30 points), the overall project viability (up to 40 points), and the project budget and sustainability (up to 30 points).

The Project Purpose and Benefits score is broken down between the overall level of impact the project will have on the proposed service area (up to 20 points) and the affordability of services offered (up to 10 points). This score will be derived from how many connections will be made and will be impacted by the amount of funding the provider partner has received from other federal sources to deploy broadband service in the proposed service area. In other words, choose your partner wisely. And keep in mind that if you are proposing a last-mile solution, you have to propose to connect 100 percent of the total unserved households in the proposed service area in order to receive all 20 of the service area points. That means the more tightly you can draw boundaries around your proposed service area to exclude served addresses, the better. Keep in mind that you can connect your unserved clusters with middle-mile infrastructure to make it contiguous without adversely impacting your scores. You may want to work with your partner to conduct selective field visits to delineate and document unserved areas to strengthen your unserved metrics and prevent challenges from incumbents in the area that could lower your unserved metrics and, therefore, your score.

Proposed subscription pricing will be compared to existing services and pricing in the area or nationwide averages. Your application should propose competitive rates for the target market.Hot tip: municipal applicants could offer services for free to qualified families struggling to afford broadband, garnering not only the full 10 points for affordability, but also a favorability bump in the programmatic and final review.

The Project Viability score is made up of two areas: the overall technical approach/related network capacity/performance (up to 20 points) and the applicants organizational capability (up to 20 points). In your project narrative and planning elements, this is where capacity and performance, clear planning, and communication of timelines will matter most. In other words, what is the technical solution you propose to solve your stated broadband needs? Your application needs to show that the proposed network solution will provide enough capacity and scalability (they have absolutely thrown around the phrase future proof) to meet the needs of all the households, businesses, and community anchor institutions in that area,simultaneouslyat peak usage. Latency will also matter.

Dont forget that how you present your organizational expertise and overall abilities is essential to the application. Part of the purpose of requiring a covered partnership is to make this part easier overall. Your provider partner should be able to demonstrate a deep track record of successful projects of similar size and scope. Even more important is the ability to hit the ground running.Hot tip: if you have the materials on-hand to ensure you can start work immediately upon award, brag about it in your application narrative. It will matter for points, and it will get you a little more favorability in the Programmatic Review.

The Project Budget and Sustainability score is the last section of the Merit Review and is broken out into three areas: 1) Reasonableness of the Budget, 2) project sustainability, and 3) if you are providing the voluntary match.

Reasonableness of the Budget literally means if you prepared a budget document and narrative that is clear, detailed, and comprehensive in approach, and generally makes sense (appropriateness), given the technical approach proposed. In other words, does the cost fit the solution? The proposed solution itself is the subject of the Project Viability score so make sure you do your homework there.

Youll get a full 15 points if you can successfully demonstrate that the project will be viable beyond the award period (for example, high operational costs combined with unrealistic take-rate assumptions could drag down your score). This should be a fairly low bar, but you may stumble if you cant clearly communicate your business plan, market projections (take-rate matters!), and any other information that will show longevity of the project.Hot tips: dont propose a solution that will need significant upgrades in the near future and dont forget that part of the reason for a partnership with a public entity is to ensure there are enough community commitments to help with sustainability.

If you can, you should absolutely include a match of at least 10 percent. Youll not only get at least 10 additional points; youll get a favorability bump in the Programmatic review. The simplest way to do this is via a match from the private partner. Depending on the partner, this should be a very low bar.

Take a sip of that coffee. Were getting to the Squishy part.

Before we jump into the last steps of the application scoring and review process, heres a hypothetical scenario. Lets say your proposed project encompasses two census blocks in an urban desert in a moderately sized city. The size of each census block is 1,000 residential homes and a smattering of businesses. The businesses are served well because they are along a main road, but the homes are getting less than 25/3 reliably. Lets further assume that 75 percent of the homes in the two census blocks are unserved. That means that the hypothetical application should propose to serve 100 percent of those 1,500 households that are unserved. The application will list the percentage unserved (75 percent) and the percentage of the unserved you are proposing to serve (100 percent of the 75 percent), as well as the actual numbers. If all other elements of the application are satisfied and the application is scored to receive 70 points or more, it should be categorized in the first priority review area by merit of its proposal to serve 100 percent of the unserved.

Assuming the application narrative has satisfied the initial Administrative and Eligibility Review and scores above 70 points in the Merit Review, it will then undergo aProgrammatic Review, where it will be reviewed for conformity with programmatic objectives, requirements, and priorities. This is where the review team will rank qualified applications that scored over 70 points in order of the priority groups in which the applications have been assigned.

In other words, your application is categorized, scored, andthenranked in its category.

This is also a deep due diligence time. If you get a call in the fall from NTIA for more information, its a good sign your application is being ranked in its priority category and they are seeking further information to finalize that ranking and determine if they will recommend an award. The team at the NTIA may also do a little deal-making during this time period. As with other agencies, they may ask you to alter to your proposal to make an award possible. Be ready and be open to changes.

When describing this process to clients, I often use the term squishy. To be clear, the scoring and ranking process is quite fair, but it isnt uncomplicated. In part, that complication is the last step in the award-decision process as defined: Once the Programmatic Review is complete, the Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications (OTIA) Associate Administrator will make rank recommendations within each priority group to the Selecting Official (SO).

This is the squishy part: The SO will then consider the following nine factors in making final decisions:

Thats the squish. And its a lot of gray area when the stakes are so high.

CTCs Grant and Funding Strategies team continues to analyze the latest developments in infrastructure funding. Pleasecontact usif you have questions or would like to discuss how CTC can assist you.

At CTC, Heather Mills guides clients on strategic funding for network planning, as well as applying for and complying with the requirements of major federal broadband and communications grant programs.She has particular expertise in the Federal Communications Commissions E-Rate program, Lifeline program, and Healthcare Connect Fund.Mills has more than a decade of experience in project management and data analysis. She has exceptional skills in long-term strategic planning for broadband funding; execution of complex tactical funding plans; and grant administration, budgeting, and financial reporting.

June 28-July 1Mobile World Congress 2021(GMSA)

June 29Are You #Pelligible for a Broadband Discount?(New America)

June 29Now What?: Charting the Next Phase in Closing the Digital Divide(Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council)

June 30Securing Internet Freedom; Forging a New Policy Framework(FCC)

June 30Not So Legacy: The Future of Voice(Public Knowledge)

July 1July 2021 Open Federal Trade Commission Meeting(FTC)

July8Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture in the United States(FCC)

July 13July 2021 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting(FCC)

July 14 & 15Open RAN Solutions Showcase(FCC)

July 18NARUC Summer Policy Summit(NARUC)

July 20Broadband is the Electricity of the 21st Century: Lets Light Up Every Community(Next Century Cities)

July 25Fiber Connect 2021(Fiber Broadband Association)

Excerpt from:
A Deep Dive into the Scoring Metrics of the NTIA's Broadband Infrastructure Program - Benton Foundation

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Reading has been on the rise since the COVID-19 outbreak, with studies showing that sustained reading surged in America during the most intense periods of the lockdown. With more time on their hands, some adults dove into books they had been hoping to get to, while others revisited favorite titles. Families read aloud together, finding joy in a former pastime.

Ahead of the start of summer, Angelus contributors explored what historians, novelists, poets, and memoirists were writing and publishing in the past year, which they recommend below.

Our contributors chose books that speak to the perennial themes about what it means to be a human being: why were here, where were going, and why it matters. Some of these authors reach back into history, examining how forefathers and ancient thinkers answered those questions.

Others tackled the experience of loneliness and lockdown as it unfolded. And still others look more directly at Jesus Christ, who alone is capable of giving the full and definitive answer, as St. Pope John Paul II wrote.

We hope these titles help you keep up the habit of reading or begin anew.

MIKE AQUILINA

Jane Greers Love Like a Conflagration (Lambing, $15.95)

This book may be the best collection of poems Ive ever read. Each of its 60 poems is meticulously crafted, cast in traditional form.

Their subjects range from the might of the Archangel Michael to the glorious burn of bourbon as it goes down. Greers hallmarks are clarity and depth. She traces human actions to their metaphysical roots. She sketches the ultimate consequences of our casual choices.

The books back cover bears deserved praise from poets, critics, and theologians. If you love poetry, this book will be the best book you read this year. If you don't, this book will show you what youve been missing.

Michael Torres What Is (Scepter, $24.95)

Torre, a philosopher, eases the rest of us ordinary nonacademic readers back into philosophys great conversation. Torre is a master teacher, and this text is the refinement of the masters efforts, over the course of 30 years, to make St. Thomas Aquinas vividly clear to undergraduates.

Unlike just about every other book ever written on metaphysics, this one is lively, filled with reasoned responses to the New Atheism and trendy relativism. The main argument of the book leads to God. But it is addressed, in a friendly and respectful way, to readers who may or may not be open to Gods existence.

Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and such love can flourish (and should) outside the university. If youve always wanted to read philosophy, but always choked by Page 10, you now have your book.

LeighAnna Schessers Struck Dumb with Singing (Lambing, $15.95)

This is Schessers first book-length collection of poems, and its extraordinary. Her lines display a deep knowledge of nature and enchanting musical quality: What is a bell but the burden of echo? / Announce! And tell, and tell, and tell. // The keeper, the farmer, or child who knows / carries the news to the bees: toil and knell.

With Catholic sensibilities she explores mercy, prophecy, incarnation, revelation. Especially strong are Schessers poems about marriage and motherhood.

A.J. Benjamins When The Son Frees You (TAN, $27.95)

Amid the rage of public discussions about same-sex attraction and conversion therapy, the media often focus on horror stories and tragedy. In this memoir is the story of what happens when a troubled adolescent gets sound spiritual advice and follows through on it. The subtitle summarizes the plot: A Catholic Mans Journey Of Healing From Same-Sex Attraction.

Benjamin charts the course of his healing through high school and college and into his decades of professional and (happy) family life. He is married and the father of three. Benjamin doesn't flinch from the difficulties; nor does he bow to secular pieties. He speaks a powerful, countercultural message most needed today.

Angela Alaimo ODonnells Love in the Time of Coronavirus (Paraclete, $19)

If you've wondered what good can come from the pandemic, read this book. She has taken the rough, raw material of our difficult year and fashioned it into poems.

A New Yorker, ODonnell experienced the plague in one of its epicenters, and early on she contracted it herself. Her lines capture the moment in memorable images: the loneliness in empty streets, churches, and classrooms and in meals taken alone; the horror in bodies piled for mass burial on Hart Island.

ODonnell is a master of the sonnet form in its many varieties, but her voice is persistently informal, colloquial, and street-wise. For its loving detail, this book is a perfect remembrance of the year that was 2020.

ROBERT INCHAUSTI

George Sauders A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life (Random House, $14.99)

This book is an anthology of Russian short stories selected with interpretive essays by National Book Award winner George Sauders.

Were going, Sauders tells us, to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesnt fully endorse, but that writers accept implicitly as the aim of art namely, to ask the big questions, questions like: How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?

Rest assured Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gogol, Chekhov, and Saunders do not disappoint. More than a master class on the short story, this is a master class on reading, feeling, understanding, empathizing, and drawing wisdom from experience.

CHRISTOPHER KACZOR

Luke Bergis Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life (St. Martins Press, $20.99)

At Stanford University, the late great Catholic professor Ren Girard came to the insight that whatever we want is characteristically shaped by whatever we think other people want. Translating the insights of Girard into everyday language, Bergis book helps us take control of our lives by helping us to more consciously shape our desires.

Matthew Dicks Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling (New World Library, $15.63)

Dicks reveals the secrets to his success in storytelling competitions, teaches us how to find the great stories in our everyday lives, and regales us with amazing (and true) stories from his own life.

Gregg A. Ten Elshofs For Shame: Rediscovering the Virtues of a Maligned Emotion (HarperCollins Christian Publishing, $18.99)

In a culture that is suspicious of shame but accepting of shaming, Ten Elshofs book makes a powerful case that weve gotten things exactly backward. This work places shame (and shamelessness) in the context of rival views of human flourishing and the history of philosophy, East and West.

This book also takes empirical research in psychology seriously but not uncritically. His reinterpretation of the story of the prodigal son as a rescuing from shame is deeply illuminative. Clearly written, free of technical jargon, and biblically informed, Ten Elshofs absolutely terrific exploration of shame deserves wide readership.

EVAN HOLGUIN

Ciucci, M. Fossati, G. Perego, and P. Sartor: The Four Gospels for Young Catholics (Pauline Books and Media, $29.95)

This collection of the Gospels, recommended for ages 9-11, is an indispensable tool for raising a generation that knows how to encounter Christ. Rather than paraphrasing the Gospels or leaving out the more difficult or complicated passages this book offers the complete NRSV Catholic Edition text accompanied by whimsical illustrations reminiscent of Roald Dahl and age-appropriate commentary.

The result is a prayerful childrens Bible that neither trivializes the faith nor makes it too daunting for young Catholics to approach. The Four Gospels for Young Catholics has been my go-to gift for first communicants and is invaluable for catechists of younger children.

ALISON NASTASI

Marcellino DAmbrosios Jesus: The Way, the Truth, and the Life (Ascension Press, $15.99)

Ive listened with rapt attention to stories told by friends about their Holy Land pilgrimages. My inner-history nerd is fascinated by the events and culture surrounding Jesus life and ministry. So I picked up DAmbrosios Jesus: The Way, the Truth, and the Life, hoping to bring the Gospels into sharper focus.

The New York Times best-selling author and theologian, known on Catholic TV and radio as Dr. Italy, offers historical and social context about the earthly timeline and divinity of Jesus. DAmbrosio sets the scene with warm familiarity through Scripture passages, geographical details, and rich historical notes that answer the Why? as you journey through Jesus time.

The book is a great companion for a Bible study or an entry point for further exploration; gift it to (receptive) secular friends, bookish teens, or new converts.

A beautifully produced 10-week video study program that accompanies the book, featuring DAmbrosio with authors Jeff Cavins and Edward Sri, brings readers even closer to the places where Jesus walked and brought new life to those who followed him.

SOPHIA MARTINSON

Stephen Schmalhofers Delightful People (Cluny, $17.95)

This little book introduces the reader to a series of faces whose lives and works intertwined to produce some of Americas finest works of literary and visual art. From Willa Cather to Henry James to John LaFarge, readers will learn of the friendships, challenges, and faith experiences that inspired these professionals.

Who would have imagined that a group of literary friends would have found inspiration and solace in Marian art in Rome? And who knew that a boy raised by Father Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, would become a priest and impact the family of an influential Italian businessman? The perfect book to read on a summer evening, Delightful People blends history, culture, and faith seamlessly and will stir both thought and conversation.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ

Inez Angeli Murzakus Mother Teresa: Saint of the Peripheries (Paulist Press, $29.95)

Mother Teresa can be used and abused, misunderstood and miscommunicated, as has happened recently in The New York Times, among other places.

Murzaku, a professor of Church history and director of the Catholic Studies Program at Seton Hall University, sets the record straight, focusing on the truth of the history, the holy collaborations, and the depths of her prayer at least, to the extent we can know. Mother Teresa: Saint of the Peripheries can help us be more like her, letting God stretch our hearts for him in love of others.

Dana Perinos Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women (from a Former Young Woman) (Twelve, $17.99)

Former presidential press secretary Perino is some of the best of America. She prioritizes family, faith, and mentoring. She is all about giving back and looking out for others.

Her book is reflective of this and, like her And the Good News Is: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side, are encouragements to make it a point to be grateful, and never letting anyone get lost in the shuffle.

Agnes Reppliers Junpero Serra: Pioneer, Missionary, Saint (Cluny Media, $19.95)

You will want to get yourself on the Cluny Media e-mail list. They are constantly publishing and republishing beauties. Reppliers Junpero Serra: Pioneer, Missionary, Saint, is among them, a short portrait of the missionary saint and a meditation on his love for God through those he served.

There is an array of novels to choose from: Im currently reading Mr. Blue ($17.95), by Myles Connolly and Stephen Mirarchi, which a priest friend tells me has the most beautiful description of the Blessed Mother (though it didnt come out last year; it was republished in 2016, but I can be slow), and Rumer Goddens In This House of Brede ($19.95), a fictional journey into the supernatural beauty and real humanity of the convent.

For spiritual reading, Ive been dipping in and out of The Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Dominican Saints ($16.95) by Ambroise Gardeil, OP, and Only Jesus: What It Really Means to Be Saved ($11.99), by Father Luis M. Martinez, who was once archbishop of Mexico City.

Father Donald Haggertys Contemplative Enigmas: Insights and Aid on the Path to Deeper Prayer(Ignatius, $14.75)

Father Haggertys book is a contemporary classic spiritual read. Like some people who talk about Thomas Mertons Seven Storey Mountain, we should be drinking in Father Haggertys books on prayer.

As with his previous book, The Contemplative Hunger, Contemplative Provocations, and Conversion, just about each paragraph in Contemplative Enigmas could make for a weeklong retreat. Contemplative Enigmas is a rich treasure for a deeper life of prayer, a life lived intimately and boldly with God.

Stephen M. Rasches The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East (Bombardier Books, $22.95)

Pope Francis did a remarkable thing when he defied COVID-19 and terrorism warnings and visited Iraq earlier this year. His apostolic journey there was a warm embrace of the Christian people there, letting them know they are not forgotten, that the world sees their suffering for Christ.

Rasche is an American who works for the Archdiocese of Erbil in Iraq and has written the backstory to understanding so much of the importance of Pope Francis time in Iraq a papal first.

We who are still blessed with religious freedom, even with its challenges, really should feel an obligation to read it and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are willing to die for him. We have so much to learn from them.

Father Paul Murray, OPs Saint Catherine of Siena: Mystic of Fire, Preacher of Freedom (Word on Fire Institute, $27)

This is the latest from Father Murray. St. Catherine was a woman who understood that liberation is only to be found in Christ.

Father Murrays writings always highlight his own mystical lens on the world and makes St. Catherine accessible to all of us, knowing were called to something so beyond our ability without becoming more and more immersed in Gods grace daily.

MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL

Paul Kengors The Devil and Karl Marx (Tan, $29.95)

Kengor is a college professor and rather prolific writer who has studied Communism for many years. When I received his book, The Devil and Karl Marx, I was eager to read it.

The professor has read many books and is very generous both with direct quotes from his sources and with information that I was not aware of. He has read the atheistic poetry of Karl Marx as a young man and an extraordinary number of books, articles, and Wikipedia posts.

If that last phrase sounds like a clunker it is because I have some real questions about Kengors books. It reads like a podcast by a curmudgeonly professor who is much too prone to sarcastic characterizations of historical figures (Marxisms founder was a seriously perverse man who brooded in misery. ) and some reportage that sounds like Conspiracy Theory 101. Some real research lost in purple prose.

Rosanna Warrens Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters (Norton, $21.60)

This book got many good reviews in serious publications and is the work of a lifetime of research. Are 700 pages a lot to read about a minor French poet? There was a lot to him.

Jacob was a painter and a figure in the art world of Pablo Picasso, his roommate and godfather, as well as Amedeo Modigliani. At the same time, he was also a poet and knew Guillaume Apollinaire, the surrealist doyen of French letters at the beginning of the 20th century.

He was a convert and part of the French Catholic mini-renaissance that included Jacques and Raissa Maritain. His whole life he struggled with his same-sex attraction. And he was a victim of the Holocaust because of his Jewish descent, dying of sickness before he could be put on a train to Auschwitz.

Original post:
A menu for the mind: Angelus reading recommendations 2021 - Angelus News

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