West Virginia BTOP Project Sparks Concerns, Confusion
A $126.3 million West Virginia BTOP project designed to connect schools and other public facilities sparked questions from the state board of education about its progress. But that was largely due to misunderstanding the project, said Dana Waldo, senior vice president with Frontier West Virginia, the project’s major contractor. He claimed the project is ahead of schedule and will be completed on time. This wasn’t the first time the state’s education officials expressed concerns about the slow pace and lack of communication on the project (CD Nov 1 p6).
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Several members of the education board claimed there’s still confusion about the project’s timeline and how many schools could connect to the network two years after the state received the grant, they said during a March 15 board meeting. About 37 percent of the state’s community anchor institutions (including schools) scheduled to receive broadband access through the grant had been deployed with infrastructure, according to the project’s latest progress report. Even though those sites were labeled as “complete” under federal grant specifications, they still couldn’t get broadband services, several board members said.
There might be a misunderstanding of what completion means, Waldo said. The federal grant only pays to lay down the infrastructure, but some school officials’ definition of “completion” includes having network connection at the level they're asking for, he said. “That’s a separate issue. … That’s where misunderstanding occurred,” he said. Frontier is working with the schools to clarify that, he said. Since the federal grant doesn’t cover “monthly recurring costs” related to service activation, it’s up to each community anchor institution to pay the service usage fee, said John Dunlap, director of network architecture and engineering at the West Virginia Office of Technology, also coordinator of the project. He said the network will be “open access” and available to every service provider in the state. Frontier, which seeks to be the service provider for the network, is also communicating with the schools about the process to request service after deployment is completed, Waldo said.
Regarding concerns about delays of the project, Dunlap said NTIA approved a “mitigation plan” submitted by the state to ensure compliance and timely completion. The state is on track to complete the deployment by February 2013 as specified by NTIA, he said. Frontier is even ahead of the mitigation plan schedule, an NTIA spokeswoman said. The agency, still closely monitoring the project, expects it to be completed on time, she said.