Officials of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under the U.S. Department of Commerce are currently on island to look at the progress of the multi-million grant it awarded IT&E to increase broadband services in the Marianas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re basically going around Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in order to look at the investment that we\u2019ve made through the ARRA grant with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, called BTOP for short,\u201d said Barbara Brown, NTIA federal program officer.<\/p>\n
Brown and Norman Davis, contractor support for BTOP, met with IT&E representatives who gave them a tour of the company\u2019s operations center, physical sites, and remote stations and gave them updates about IT&E\u2019s overall plan throughout the grant program.<\/p>\n
Brown said that they awarded IT&E with over $10 million grant, including the $2 million matching funds, \u201cto provide broadband to unserved and underserved portions of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that what IT&E did \u201cbuilt out the broadband infrastructure with fiber and microwave in order to provide a much more robust connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re working steadily and on pace in order to complete in time and they\u2019ve done a fantastic job,\u201d Brown told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
The visiting officials went to visit on Oct. 18 beneficiaries of IT&E\u2019s infrastructure upgrades on Saipan such as the Northern Marianas College and various youth centers.<\/p>\n
House Vice Speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) and Rep. Edmund S. Villagomez (Cov-Saipan) met with the group at the Garapan Community Development Center on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Brown said it\u2019s \u201cincredibly exciting\u201d to see the Garapan Community Development Center facility being able to offer broadband services to students and allowing them to take advantage of after-school tutorials and digital literacy programs, among others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a tremendous opportunity to bring the borders of the world down and everyone can be on the same playing field,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have the opportunity in front of them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Yesterday, IT&E brought the visitors to their site improvements on Tinian. They\u2019re scheduled to fly to Rota today and in Guam on Friday, according to marketing coordinator Brad Ruszala.<\/p>\n
Ruszala noted that the project is more than just increasing broadband services to the islands of Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s increasing awareness and helping educate the public and engage anchor institutions on the importance of broadband access,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ogumoro deems the ARRA grant-funded project as an opportunity to offer more services and opportunities that are \u201cstrong and accessible\u201d for the entire community, particularly the youth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Officials of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under the U.S. Department of Commerce are currently on island to look at the progress of the multi-million grant it awarded IT&E to increase broadband services in the Marianas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}