Now that the first round of the Broadband Stimulus program is underway, it is looking a lot like other government programs. Too much paperwork, heavy burdens for auditing, lots of restrictions on what can be done with the money, big fees for consultants and a long time before many of the projects will start to make an impact. It is also creating another group of haves and have-nots. Many broadband providers, especially WISPs, will not have the time and capacity to meet the requirements of the program and will now face more competition from government funded projects. Isn’t there a better way to fix the digital divide?
Looking at the early returns from the Cash for Clunkers rebate program highlights another possible way to stimulate broadband adoption in the US. What if the USDA/NTIA be persuaded to offer some kind of “Dollars for Dialup” program? A government program that offered rebates and/or incentives for citizens to drop their dialup and transition to true 1meg or higher broadband service would enable ALL broadband providers to benefit from the broadband stimulus and directly accomplish the goal of getting people onto broadband. This might even be a good complement to the first round of the stimulus, because many of the people in the US who don’t have broadband don’t have it for financial reasons. This would help drive demand for all of the new infrastructure that will be built, and it would also benefit existing providers that have already built out infrastructure without government money.
If it can be done for cars, it can be done for broadband.
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