Courtesy: Moko.labs
Rick Boucher (whose internet privacy bill I discussed earlier in the week) is working to change part of the Broadband Stimulus Bill. Well, it’s more of a collection of bills, but that’s the term I’ll be using since it’s way faster than writing them all out. Anyway, his point is that the bill, which is supposed to provide broadband to more remote areas of the United States, is sort of broken in how it defines the word remote. Based on the bill, “almost the entire Eastern US is disqualified from 80 to 100 percent” of the grants. Apparently, this is largely a function of the mountainous terrain in the region. A lot of towns which you or I would think of as remote are not considered such under the current definitions.
Yeah, That’s Broken
Mr. Boucher’s point is one that shouldn’t be scoffed at. Unlike the AT&T lobbyists who essentially want to ruin all American broadband stimulus initiatives, Boucher is pretty clearly outside the reach of corporate interests, or at least he is for now. So when he raises a point, it’s one worth examining.
The terms of the bill do in fact relegate a lot of smaller towns which are in desparate need of some assistance in getting online. According to Reuters, “some grants are not available to remote communities that are within 50 miles of a city of at least 20,000.” That describes plenty of Appalachian towns which would be lucky to have even the minimum 768 kbps downstream connections that the bills call for. The point of legislation, be it for government-run programs or just plain old laws, is to help people. If legislators can change the stimulus bills so that they help more people, then they should go ahead and change them.
