US Economic Stimulus: $7.2 billion for Broadband Buildout

The highest penetration of broadband (subscribers per household) in the world is South Korea with something like 93 % penetration. In fact in Seoul I believe it exceeds 100%. If I remember, the US just hit 50% penetration last year, so building out broadband, especially to rural areas, is a top priority of the Obama administration.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) includes $7.2 billion for broadband buildouts. But distributing this amount of money is not that simple.  The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is responsible for distributing $4.7 billion in grants to deploy high-speed Internet to unserved and underserved regions.

Massachussetts seems to be ahead of the game, because the state passed a bill in 2008 to created the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, which is a quasi-public agency that's supposed to expand broadband availability by pursuing opportunities, such as stimulus funds.  The state intends to do this by a government private sector partnership.

Comments

[Terry]

I live in Massachusetts, and have been paying close attention to the Broadband Initiative. I draw your attention to their "Call For Solutions" (right sidebar). I, too, got all excited at the prospect of better broadband penetration into the more rural areas of our state, and looked forward to seeing what sorts of 'solutions' would be proposed when the call went out.

However, when the proposals came in, I soon discovered the fallacy of the numbers quoted for broadband penetration. Many of the small towns in Massachusetts claim to be underserved in the broadband department (there's a map link in the left sidebar). However, when you read the proposals by Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, they point to a simple fact: most of the homes in Massachusetts, be they rural or not, already have either phone lines or cable (or both) running to them. So the question is begged: Is it that they don't have broadband available to them, or is it simply that they're not happy with the cost of the broadband that's already available?