The telecom blogosphere is rife with reaction to the details of the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding.

(Acronym reminders: NOFA – Notice of Funds Availability; NTIA – National Telecommunications and Information Administration; RUS – Rural Utilities Service)

Here are some snippets.

Vince Vittore, Yankee Group: “Probably the most disappointing of the multiple definitions offered up by this NOFA. Broadband under this interpretation is “advertised speeds” of at least 768 kbps down and at least 200 kbps upstream. Both NTIA and RUS missed the opportunity to push the boundaries here.”

Harold Feld, WetMachine: “Biggest Policy Screw Up The introduction of “managed services.” In theory, allows services like telemedicine to get dedicated capacity without resorting to “tiering” that is anathema to network neutrality. In reality, is great new way for incumbents to privilege their own VOIP and video services over traffic of others.

Best Issue They Got Right That Everyone Else Thinks They got Wrong: Speed. I am in the minority in thinking they played this right. There are too many good projects potentially excluded by allowing only speeds of 45 mbps or better (what the House originally proposed). I dislike relying on advertised speed rather than actual speed, but that problem needs to be addressed globally because trying to enforce it here is too damn difficult.

Blandin Foundation, Blandin on Broadband on the grant-writing process: “I have actually written grants for the NTIA. They are arduous. If you plan to take on the challenge, I wish you luck. If you do I hope that you will consider your project valuable enough to deploy regardless of what funding decisions are made.”

Craig Settles, Fighting the Next Good Fight on incumbents vs. public utilities: “If the NOFA gives bonus points to proposals that exceed NTIA/RUS’ minimum definitions of broadband, there’ll be happier hearts in the Heartland. Given how many communities have shown that they and public utilities can build faster networks at cheaper subscription rates than incumbents, bonus points give these types of networks a boost in the grant game.”

Carl Weinschenk, ITBusinessEdge: “In short, the philosophical debates are ending and the actual awards are set to start. ... The money in the package – $7.2 billion – is a lot for you and me, but not a lot when it is positioned compared to total telecom spending. The big deal, then, is not breadth of the expenditure itself, but the fact that it is being applied to bringing broadband to rural areas. The post suggests that the real goal is to do thing such as bring home-based employment, modern industry and health care to these areas.”

The Senate voted several key communications agency nominations off its plate Thursday night. It’s like a sigh of relief and a cynical shake of the head all at once: the comms industry has needed to sail out of the doldrums in which it’s languished but it’s had to wait on policymakers before it could start working on critical strategies and reforms. And those approvals weren’t really expected until next month. But it always kills me how members of Congress, headed for yet another vacation they don’t want to begin late or cut short, suddenly have the time and presence of mind to make decisions.

Regardless, we finally have a new FCC chairman, a re-confirmed Republican commissioner and a new National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) head.

Julius Genachowski now takes over for Michael Copps, who has served as acting FCC chairman since January. By all accounts, Copps did a solid job in dealing with a demoralized staff and in launching creation of a national broadband policy, as tasked by the White House. Oh, and he shepherded the country through the DTV transition.

All notable accomplishments for Copps. Still, it’s a bit of a mystery why he allowed the CenturyTel-Embarq merger to be pushed through before Genachowski stepped in. Copps himself even admitted in a June 25 statement the transaction’s conditions were tepid at best and that the terms set no precedents for future deal approvals. So maybe the rationale stems from the expectation that Genachowski will be more thorough, dare I say strict, than his predecessors. And maybe Copps & Co. didn’t want to hold up the creation of the nation’s largest rural carrier over broadband deployment and competitor access concerns. Petty matters, anyway, right?

Nonetheless, it’s Genachowski who gets to call the shots during this, his first term as FCC chairman. Observers long have anticipated that he will champion net neutrality principles, stand up for CLECs and scrutinize industry consolidation. If the congratulatory press releases streaming in from the likes of XO Communications, tw telecom and COMPTEL are any indication, that’s exactly what competitors envision.

He has a lot to live up to, does Genachowski. Yet it looks as though he’ll have a strong complement of commissioners surrounding him, even though they won’t always agree. For instance, Robert McDowell is headed into his second term as a Republican FCC member, and Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker are expected to join as soon as they receive their Senate nods. Jonathan Adelstein is off to oversee the Rural Utilities Service. He’ll be missed but it will be good to have a fresh Democratic voice, although it’s debatable how independent of lobbyist interests Clyburn really will be. For now, the situation is relegated to the cliché “wait and see” realm.

McDowell, meanwhile, has been a refreshing FCC commissioner. A Republican and former COMPTEL lawyer, he often opposed the positions of former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Martin was quite accustomed to his fellow Republicans blindly following his lead and McDowell several times refused to do that. For that alone, that willingness to think apart from the crowd, I am glad McDowell’s staying at the FCC (although I hear through the grapevine he’s a really good guy and that’s always an asset among policymakers).

Finally we have Larry Strickling, new top dog at the NTIA, part of the Commerce Department. Strickling once was a top FCC staffer. And since the FCC and NTIA are collaborating somewhat on the formation of a national broadband policy – the FCC is taking the lead – the crossover should help push that along, especially as NTIA distributes $4.5 billion in broadband stimulus funds.

So, even though Congress has the luxury of its fourth vacation so far this year, the new appointees to the FCC and NTIA should be getting to work the week of June 29. Maybe now the industry will start to see some headway on broadband deployment and other long-lingering issues. It might be summer, but let’s hope the season of stagnation has passed for the comms industry.

Lots going on at the FCC this week – all good stuff, I think.

The FCC now has the first round of comments on a national broadband plan and we’ll see more feedback by July 7. It takes a village to craft a policy, right? xchange is tracking the major issues popping up in the comments; consider this week’s piece on broadband speed definition just a start.

There were also some interesting staff changes at the FCC. For starters, Acting Chairman Michael Copps brought Blair Levin back to the agency. Levin, most recently a telecom analyst at investment bank Stifel Nicolaus, was FCC Chief of Staff under Reed Hundt. So he’s pretty much seen and done it all when it comes to a transforming communications industry. He’s tasked with helping craft the national broadband strategy, and there’s probably no one better suited to the job.

And there was one more notable staff change. Kent Nilsson, a career FCC staffer, retired from his most recent post as inspector general. That’s the role to which former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin appointed Nilsson. And Nilsson allegedly abused the privileges of the job – he now is under investigation – and reportedly didn’t play well with Democratic others, all of which would explain his departure now. At the very least, Copps is cleaning up Martin’s many messes and the FCC seems to be functioning better than it has in years.