Economic Stimulus Package through Telecom Infrastructure

Found this interesting article. In order to stay copetitive in the global economy we need to continue to build the broadband infrastructure and availability in this country.

Investment in 100 (Mbps) NetworkSource:
www.freepress.net

According to a new new report issued by the Freepress Action Fund, President-elect Obama and congressional leaders have concluded that a massive economic stimulus package focused on infrastructure is the best hope for pulling the U.S. economy out of the current recession. In the past, such stimulus efforts traditionally focused on highways and utilities, and these types of projects certainly belong in the new stimulus package. However, the incoming Obama administration and Congress must look beyond the interstate highways and start investing in the information superhighway. Just as President Eisenhower's economic policies brought Americans a national transportation system in the 1950s, President Obama's can connect Americans to a communications network fast becoming the foundation of the 21st Century economy.

Promoting the deployment of a national, forward-looking broadband infrastructure will provide substantial short-term and long-term economic benefits. This deployment effort will immediately create tens of thousands of new jobs in the telecommunications, manufacturing and high-tech sectors. In turn, a new, world-class broadband infrastructure will spark the creation of millions more jobs in nearly every economic sector connected to technology and communications.
In particular, these policies will provide substantial economic relief to the rural areas of America hit hardest by the current recession. They will also improve our global competitiveness, lifting us from 15th place (or by other measures, 22nd place) among developed nations in broadband adoption. Increased broadband adoption - particularly if targeted to low-income users and households with school-age children - will also substantially increase short-term consumer spending. And it will ensure long-term economic growth by bringing those on the wrong side of the digital divide into the digital economy.

Though the Internet was born here, American consumers are not benefiting from broadband's full potential because our networks are slow and expensive compared to the rest of the world. This is largely because there is no meaningful competition in the American broadband marketplace, and network operators have no incentive to make substantial long-term investments. Broadband stimulus funding should only be used to build world-class networks unlikely to be deployed absent public investment. Freepress Action Fund recommends that stimulus funds be targeted at deploying broadband services capable of delivering actual (not advertised) speeds in excess of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) in both upstream and downstream directions.

A broadband stimulus package must be carefully targeted and tied to public service principles that ensure that American taxpayers get a strong return on their investment. In this paper, Freepress Action Fund offers a set of proposals to expand the debate about broadband stimulus and provide a foundation for further discussion.

Freepress Action Fund focuses on a set of key public policy priorities:
- Rural America — building out future-proof networks to unserved areas.
- Low-income users — supporting affordable broadband connections, computers and tech training.
- Global competitiveness — upgrading our urban infrastructure to meet world-class standards.
- Education — promoting children's access to technology at school and at home.
- Accountability — ensuring clear standards of quality, affordability and competition, and deduct up to $200 in qualifying Internet access device expenditures.

Broadband Data Improvement Act Funding($300 million over 3 years)
Congress recently passed legislation to promote broadband deployment and adoption by mapping broadband availability through the collection of comprehensive data. However, no money was appropriated to implement the programs established in the bill.
By funding the public/private programs envisioned by this already approved effort, Congress can ensure that broadband stimulus funding is directed to the areas where it is needed most.
Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program ($150 million over 3 years)
Congress should appropriate $50 million per year over three years to this USDA-led program for the explicit purpose of constructing and/or funding community centers (including libraries) that will offer free broadband services and technology training, with an emphasis on training for families with children and senior citizens.

Health Care and Public Service Digital Modernization Program ($150 million over 3 years)
President-elect Obama has expressed the desire to use the stimulus legislation to increase efficiency in our nation's health care system by bringing record-keeping and other health care services into the digital age. There is a similar need to modernize the customer service systems at local and state governmental agencies. Such modernization would vastly improve productivity in the general economy, replacing long lines with easy-to-navigate, Web-based service portals. Congress should establish a program, overseen by the NTIA, that supports modernization at health care facilities and local and state agencies.

Oversight, Accountability and Results
Though the stimulus is needed quickly, and though it is almost certain that legislation will be crafted in haste, Congress must not simply write blank checks to industry. To maximize the effectiveness of scarce taxpayer resources, oversight and accountability measures must be established. If the public is to become a financial partner in our broadband networks, the private owners of those networks must be held to public service standards.
In particular, mechanisms should be established to ensure that any tax incentives or grant monies are used to fund new broadband deployment projects. This requirement will ensure that the stimulus funds are used to create new jobs, not to prop up the stock prices of telecommunications companies.

All of the grant programs and tax policies we recommend must be available to all telecommunications providers, including municipalities, nonprofits, and non-incumbent carriers.
Further, stimulus money must be tied to strict build-out schedules and affordability and capacity requirements. This level of public investment should return a network that is world-class — not simply an incremental improvement over the status quo. The Internet service these subsidies are designed to support also must be an open, freely competitive platform for ideas and commerce.