TOP Encourages Organizations
to Explore Possibilities
Leading-edge Technology Offers

For example, TOP is supporting demonstration of Internet2, an exciting new high-speed technology called Broadband over Power Lines, as well as services that rely on broadband, such as Voice over Internet Protocol.

• Minot State University in Minot, North Dakota, is harnessing the power of Internet2 to provide broadband connectivity between medical centers and community facilities for people with mental retardation.
  
• Nemours, a children's clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, is delivering pediatric remote home monitoring services for children with asthma using Broadband over Power Lines.
  
• Texas A&M Research Foundation will prototype technologies to address the time-critical issue of location identification for Internet-based phones and other communications devices.
  
• San Joaquin General Hospital in San Joaquin County, California, is experimenting with Voice over Internet systems to share cost-effective and rapid remote medical interpreter services.
  

Other 2004 grant winners applying broadband technologies include:

• University of Utah Health Science Centers, Salt Lake City, UT
  
• Lincoln Action Program, Lincoln, NE
  
• West Virginia Primary Care Network, Huntington, WV
  
• Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
  

Given the enormous potential of emerging wireless broadband services, licensed and unlicensed, TOP's grant winners in 2004 are creatively applying wireless services and devices:

• San Diego State University Foundation is installing a sensor network in a wildland reserve identified as a high fire risk and is streaming this information for real-time monitoring and response using a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi (802.11b) broadband network.
  
• The National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education is providing at-risk high school students within a five-mile radius of two HBCUs in Virginia and Tennessee with wireless laptops connecting via a new wireless standard to provide educational enrichment, mentoring and workforce skills.
  
• The City of Philadelphia is equipping outreach workers with wireless laptops to aid the homeless and families in transition to identify existing shelter and housing arrangements.
  

Other projects using wireless technologies include:

• Community Partners, Amherst, MA
  
• Center for Urban Missions, Birmingham, AL
  
• Nonprofit Assistance Center, Seattle, WA
  
• Fairfax County Schools, Fairfax, VA
  

Given NTIA's focus on spectrum reform-and the potential of putting spectrum in the hands of enterprising organizations-TOP's grantees include organizations experimenting with 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 4.9 GHz applications:

• Parker Fire Protection District in Parker, Colorado, is harnessing the potential of the recently transferred 4.9 GHz band to enhance mobile broadband public safety applications in varying topographic environments.
  
• Greene County, in North Carolina, is beta-testing a 900 MHz final mile product to provide broadband connectivity to rural farmers for new enterprise development.