Vendors have until August 14 to submit proposals for a total of about $4 billion in grants and loans described in a 121-page Notice of Funds Availability document posted late Thursday (July 2). "It was my weekend reading," said Paul Sinderbrand, an attorney tracking the process Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP (Washington D.C.), a telecom law firm.

Ultimately a total of about $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds will come from two agencies. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) controls about $4.7 billion and about $2.5 billion comes from the Rural Utility Service (RUS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The agencies were expected to release about a third of their funds in three separate offerings over the next two years. However, in this first round RUS announced it is making available $2.4 billion--almost its entire package--and NTIA is putting up $1.6 billion, a little more than a third of its package.

Both agencies have given vendors just 44 days to respond. That's far shorter than the 60-90 days anticipated.

The RUS has opted to give the lion's share--$2 billion--of its money away as grants, focused on bringing broadband to the most remote and unserved areas in America. About $400 million of the grants are for areas at least 50 miles away from anywhere not considered rural.

"These are places where you are really doing a new build from scratch," said Sinderbrand.