There’s a myth in Washington that if you throw a lot of money around, you’ll fix the economy. The catchy new word for the same old hog slop is “Stimulus�? House Speaker Pelosi and company are drafting the mother of all giveaways in 
anticipation of pushing it through the Senate an on the new new President’s desk by inauguration day. The legislation’s crafting has been a makin�?bacon bacchanal of free spending resembling a 60’s love in more than a group of responsible adults acting in the public interest. Look for the requesters for every silly project for the over served and undeserving to show up early and stay late at this party.
Quest has crashed the gates asking for money to fund expansion of their fiber backbone to undeserved areas, something they should have already been doing for years. Having built out the major markets with stopgap DSL, the telcos have been investing in everything but infrastructure while charging a premium for stagnating bandwidth. This is not new behavior for the bells. Every time a major upgrade has been in order, they’ve found a way to get public money to do it. It’s time to top feeding the telco pig and do something that will actually improve broadband access.
Qwest Communications International Inc. sent a letter to the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday asking the federal government to use some of its planned economic stimulus spending to increase high-speed Internet access in unserved areas.
The Denver-based telecom (NYSE: Q) mailed the four-page proposal to the transition team and to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.
In it, the company proposes that the government make an unspecified amount money available to states, which would request bids from companies proposing to achieve 95 percent statewide availability of broadband that’s 7-megabits-per-second or faster. (New Mexico Busienss Weekly)
If Pelosi and the incoming president are serious about expanding and improving broadband, they will not hand more money to the telcos carte blanche like they have in the past. If we are to improve access, we must begin by reinstating local loop unbundling on copper, and set the line lease at prices that reflect a fully written down infrastructure. Making copper open for competitve access providers will shift the empahsis to fiber and high speed wireless, while improving DSL service and reducing prices. Then make fiber infrastrcture exempt from required right of way sharing rule for 10 years, and make finanacing avaliable to those who are willign to build. If telcos want to continue to charge a premium for access they’ll need to build fiber of high speed wireless networks. Finally, stop USF support of rural voice service, and make finacing avaliable to anyone willing to build high speed rural wireless, with a streamlined process for licensing bandwidth. My plan will save a load of money and actually make a difference. Feeding the porkers will only get a few folks superbowl tickets and invites to swanky retreats while the rest of us will languish and get stuck with the bill.
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