Broadband enthusiasts in the US are feeling slightly underwhelmed by the $6 billion promised for broadband infrastructure development in the new president's financial stimulus package, recently announced. Some were expecting more and are upset that the number is so low, another group doesn't think the government should interfere at all, global recession or no global recession, and should just 'get out of the way' and use market forces.
In normal circumstances $6 billion might be counted a hefty sum, but the Obama fiscal stimulus proposals, produced in league with the 'house democrats' in Congress whose support is necessary to have the measure pass, totals a cool $825 billion - even in these days when 'trillions' are bandied about, that's substantial. To get a measly $6 billion from that total might feel like a rebuke.
Of course the opportunity from the package is double-sided. As well as its primary goal of stimulating the US economy, stalled by the effects of the financial crisis, the various US lobbies are fully aware that the package can also be justified by redressing resource imbalances between regions or to pep up lagging sectors.
Many regard broadband in the US as just such a lagging sector - some surveys put the US at number 15 in the world broadband rankings, a fact which worries many who rightly point out that the Internet and much of the technology it relies on, were all made in America.
Having a sprawling, hard-to-serve rural population, has also seen the opening of a digital divide within the US itself.
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