USA CHOICE INTERNET VYING TO BRING WIRELESS MOBILE ACCESS TO UNDERSERVED NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA COUNTIES
OIL CITY, Penn. - USA Choice Internet Services announced today that it has submitted a $9.1 million grant application to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) for the opportunity to provide affordable, fixed and mobile high speed Internet access for the first time to residents and businesses in Forest, Warren, Venango and Crawford counties.
If successful in its "Rural Access Initiative" bid, USA Choice will install a regional infrastructure that will provide homes, schools and businesses of the mostly rural Northwest Pennsylvania region the same world-class connectivity currently only available in large metropolitan and suburban areas. Also benefitting will be various government agencies, including first responders such as police, fire and health care providers that presently have little or no mobile data broadband, a severe hindrance to real-time access to critical, life-saving information and communication as is available in certain more densely populated communities.
"Having virtually no access to modern broadband and wireless technology is a great hindrance to the economic viability of rural areas around the country," said Ray Schwabenbauer, managing partner of USA Choice. "If funded, USA Choice's initiative aims to bridge that technological divide by providing the economically-strapped, rural counties of Northwest Pennsylvania with life-changing mobile technology and instantaneous access to the Internet for homes, businesses, laptops and PDAs. We believe this will greatly enhance the quality of life for the 79,000 households here and make the area much more viable for prospective businesses and investment."
With the grant funding, USA Choice will deploy a wireless mobile broadband system using nationally recognized IP Wireless 3GPP network architecture that will be software modified to LTE, the technology target of all large U.S.-based cellular companies. The new USA Choice system, which will offer transmission speeds 50 times faster than typical rural-area dial-up technology, will operate on the company's licensed 700 MHz frequency. This spectrum was acquired by USA Choice in 2008 as part of the largest airwave auction ever held by the Federal Communications Commission.
USA Choice's new network will be one of the first rural installations of its kind in the U.S., using hand-offs from tower to tower to provide coverage (the equal of state-of-the-art cellular installations.) The company's submission is one of the only federal funding proposals in the U.S. for "last mile" connectivity, and one of only two that proposes to use the 700 MHz licensed frequency for fixed and mobile access. "Ours is definitely a model that other rural areas will look to replicate in the future," added Schwabenbauer.
An August 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service confirms that limited or nonexistent broadband restricts Internet use in rural communities. This is despite the fact that broadband is shown to foster community involvement, enhance the provision of services such as health and education, expand household income prospects and boost the overall well-being of communities.
Federal funding targeted by USA Choice's grant application is being made available through the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which appropriated $7.2 billion to expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S., as well as to increase jobs, spur investments in technology and infrastructure, and provide long-term economic benefits. "We're extremely hopeful that our proposal will be approved. Building this modern technological infrastructure is critical to revitalizing our region, which has seen many jobs and industries lost over the last several years. However, there are currently only limited federal dollars dedicated to rural community mobile access and hundreds of proposals being submitted nationally, so we strongly encourage all residents and businesses in our four-county region to contact their local, state and federal representatives about the importance of bringing Internet access to our communities. We may not get another chance," added Schwabenbauer.
More Information...
Stimulus Executive Summary
Letter of support from Representative Thompson
Letter of support from Representative Hutchinson
Letter of support from Venango County Commissioners
Letter of support from IU-6
Letter of support from Forest County Commissioners
The Derrick News Article
Letter of support from Commonwealth of PA - USA Choice applied with Technology Council of Northwest PA