‘Tis the season for giving (and lobbying)

You could see it coming. Once President Bush signed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill into law, most certainly it was not going to end there. With clouds of economic turmoil darkening by the day, the auto industry jetted into town with tin cup in hand. Cities and states screamed they were going broke and needed help. Farmers could use bridge loans, too. How about the underachieving broadband sector, served predominately by telephone and cable TV giants even as wireless providers chip away at the duopoly?
What is emerging is a coordinated effort by odd bedfellows (Google, Verizon, AT&T and organized labor among the mix) to marry a push for a national broadband strategy with a lobbying campaign to have broadband meaningfully included in a $500 million economic stimulus package being crafted by Congress. So far, the signs look promising. A senior aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reportedly said broadband has a seat at the table. President-elect Barack Obama has stated the U.S. should have anational broadband policy and be the world leader in high-speed Internet connections. Indeed, if all goes according to plan, economic stimulus legislation would be the first bill signed by Obama shortly after he’s sworn in as president.
All this has service providers, manufacturers and applications companies in the broadband space jazzed. But it’s not quite a Kumbaya moment.
Consumer advocates are not keen on the idea of leading broadband firms potentially becoming beneficiaries of economic stimulus aid.
“Expanding broadband access should be a priority for the Obama administration, but we are adamantly opposed to just doling out taxpayers’ money to telecom companies, given their record of hitting consumers with inflated prices and slower Internet speeds compared to other industrialized countries,” said Gene Kimmelman, VP for federal and international affairs at Consumers Union.
Kimmelman offered an alternative plan to address the pressing problem of bringing broadband access to those left behind: the digital divide crowd.
“Expanding financial support for municipal-sponsored Internet services offers consumers a direct guarantee that taxpayer support will result in new, low-cost services where competition has failed to emerge,” he stated.
How broadband stimulus fits (or not) into Federal Communications Commission efforts to integrate broadband into universal service fund reform is unclear. But maybe that’s irrelevant. There are dollars and tax breaks to be had now, and the government spigot is wide open. It’s gushing.