Tecore Networks has welcomed the joint NTIA-RUS announcement of a second round of federal stimulus funding to expand broadband access throughout the United States, as required by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  Tecore's core network, radio access network, and turnkey infrastructure products have received USDA Rural Development Acceptance and "Buy American" status, have been deployed for over a decade in rural, new license, and remote networks around the globe, and have evolved to 3G and 4G mobile broadband standards, making them ideal to support applications being accepted in a short window between February 16 and March 15, 2010.

The ARRA calls for a total of $7.2 billion in funding for broadband initiatives in rural and underserved parts of the country, to be overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS).  The NTIA-RUS Round 2 announcement covers $4.8 billion in funding, with NTIA accepting applications for middle-mile projects and RUS accepting applications for last-mile projects.  The agencies are stressing that applicants should form public-private partnerships with government, non-profit and for-profit entities, and other key stakeholders, to ensure the whole community benefits from stimulus funding.

Tecore offers the iCore®, an all-IP software-defined core network designed to bring the capabilities of Tier 1 mobile networks to smaller operators.  Supporting the GSM and CDMA technology families through 2G and 3G, with an upgrade path via software plug-ins to 4G LTE, iCore offers the reliability of a widely deployed platform, the upward and downward scalability critical to rural and remote markets, and the advanced broadband service required by NTIA and RUS.  iCore also enables multi-technology roaming to maximize revenue from visiting subscribers, and provides concurrent support for 2G voice services as part of a comprehensive communications service offering.