As much as I want to love the Broadband Stimulus Bill, which will allocate $7.2 billion of taxpayer money to setting up broadband in areas that are lacking in internet connectivity, some real concerns have come to light over whether or not this bill will actually do anything. Despite the fact that $350 million of that $7.2 billion are being used to figure out where US citizens are lacking in broadband coverage, some are now questioning whether or not the government will actually get an accurate picture of which parts of the country are actually in need of broadband stimulus.
The concerns are real. Apparently, with a looming deadline (grant money is going to be given out starting this Friday), the government has decided that they do not have to evaluate the current speeds offered to consumers. That’s a huge let down as the original bill promised to improve broadband in deprived areas (places where connections are below 768 Kbps downstream). The reasoning, and this is absolutely shameful, is that the telecom information about the speeds they provide could not be obtained as the telecoms considered it competitive data.
This is indicate of a long-running problem that we’ve had: namely that internet is still not considered a utility. There is no chance that a power company could refuse to give the government data on its ability to cover an area for competitive reasons, so to say that internet providers, companies which regularly screw over customers, are alotted some sort of protection is absurd.
The best case scenario right now would be for the government to push back the bill’s deadline and try to get things right before they start doling out billions of dollars, but I doubt that’ll happen.
(Info via GigaOM)
