Readers weigh in on broadband stimulus

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the broadband portions of the recently passed U.S. economic stimulus bill, and it stirred a good deal of reaction from readers, who acknowledged the problems the bill is trying to address while expressing skepticism that it would actually fix those problems.

Several readers attested that the problem of getting Internet access into rural areas is a real one. Reader Dave wrote:

"I run the network for an international company, with very well educated, specific industry experts living in very far flung places. I get much faster and much cheaper circuits for my people in central China than I do for my people in central New York. We need to fix that."

An anonymous reader agreed that the issue is real, but was unsure whether the bill would really address the need:

"My friend lives between 3 cities with DSL/Cable Internet, none of them quite make it to his house. AT&T has been promising for at least 4 years that they would have DSL in his area next year. I'm betting more of that money will end up building up areas where the broadband companies have more competition instead of providing rural access."

Reader MCharles was concerned that "The bill will not promote incumbent use of funds because there are Net Neutrality provisions in the B-band Opportunity program section of the bill. No incumbent will choose that. Moreover, the funds are too small to really create robust networks elsewhere."

An anonymous reader said that the bill won't do anything to address the poor QoS of the broadband providers, described as "stinky beyond description." It just means tax money will be spent to bring that awful service to more people.

Reader jricker was highly skeptical that the broadband plan could actually be executed. He pointed to another federal project as proof of the government's shortcomings: "Anyone who thinks that the feds can actually manage a project like this should be reminded that these are the same people trying to roll out digital television. Make lots of promises, spend a lot of money, then spend some more, delay, delay. It's a joke at taxpayers' expense."

Another anonymous reader cast doubt on whether the places getting the benefits would even care: "Rural neighborhoods couldn't care less about getting access to the Web… Besides that, poorer neighborhoods [wouldn't] know what to do with it if they had it."

But that kind of talk drew a sharp retort from another anonymous poster:

"I happen to live in a rural area. I and many of neighbors happen to think that broadband access to the Internet is very important. We are not the country bumpkins you make us out to be. We are computer technicians, business owners, and members of the various local governments. Until recently, the only access we had was dial-up which made doing business rather difficult. We currently have DSL, which is faster than dial-up, but it is still not very fast. I feel that broadband in rural areas would be a great improvement over the poor quality of the so-called DSL service that we have now. So, yes we would appreciate it, and yes we would know what to do with it if we had it. We'd use it to conduct our businesses in a more efficient manner."

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.