Notice of Ex Parte Discussion/Cisco Systems

On May 1, 2009, Jeffrey A. Campbell, Senior Director of Technology and
Trade Policy for Cisco Systems, Inc. spoke telephonically with Mark
Seifert, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary, NTIA regarding the
applicability of the "Buy America" provisions of the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to the Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program and the Rural Utilities Service.   Mr. Campbell reiterated
Cisco's position that the NTIA and RUS should grant a public interest
waiver of the "Buy America" provisions for certain electronic products
for reasons delineated in Cisco's earlier filings in this proceeding.
Specifically, the completely globalized supply chain of the broadband
equipment sector means that many types of the most important equipment
is not produced in the United States.  Preventing the use of globally
sourced equipment in broadband projects under the BTOP and RUS would
significantly limit product and technology choices and could impair the
ability of the programs to succeed.  Reorienting the global electronics
supply chain for this specific program in a short period of time would
be both inefficient and expensive.  Additionally, Cisco notes that
Office of Management and Budget's Implementation Guidelines for ARRA
grant programs indicates that grants to private sector entities would
not have any "Buy America" requirements while those to public sector
entities would.  A public interest waiver would also be justified to
allow public sector entities to access the same broadband equipment as
the private sector entities.

The specific equipment that should receive the public interest waiver
is:

Routers 
    - Edge
    - Core
    - Residential Access, including cable modem termination system and
IP set top boxes
    - Commercial Access, including local access routers
 
Switches
    - Edge 
    - Core
    - Residential Access
    - Commercial Access
 
Wireless Access
    - WiMAX
    - WiFi
    -	CMDA
    -	UMTS
    -	LTE
 
Optical
    - Access
    - Metro
    - Transport
 
Subscriber Management Hardware and Software
    - Security
    - Management Applications
    - Storage
    - Data Center Switching
    - Load Balancing