As of Monday night, the industry is in the 30-day period in which incumbents can challenge federal broadband stimulus applications for projects that involve census blocks within their footprint. Based on what some experts are saying, this challenge period could be very interesting. "There will be many challenges," said Tom Cohen, legal counsel to the FTTC Council. "There are situations where [applicants] are saying, 'This is an underserved area,' and incumbents are saying, 'We're already there.'" It would seem to be a straightforward matter: Is broadband service available in a given census block or isn't it? But does advertising a service in a given area mean it's available? In the case of rural areas, broadband service may run into distance limits such that broadband can be available in a neighborhood but not to every house. Census blocks are the smallest geographical unit used by the US Census, and there are 82 million of them - many uninhabited. Urban census blocks can correspond to actual blocks, but in rural areas, census blocks are geographically much larger.One company had gone door-to-door in the census blocks it is claiming are underserved before filing its application, and hopes any challenger would have to do the same thing - a comment which drew laughter.
