Telcos to Congress: More Money Please
An association of small telecommunications providers, some of them rural, has taken a look at the broadband dollars in the stimulus bills making their way through both houses of Congress and said, "Please sir, can I have some more?" What’s more disturbing (although just as predictable), is they want to lower the speed requirements to 1.5 Mbps downlink.
The stimulus bill that passed Wednesday in the House offers $6 billion in grants for providing broadband (much of that in rural areas), but required speeds of 5 Mbps down and 1 up. The companion bill moving through the Senate has the same speed requirements on the low end, and offers $9 billion in grants. But The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance along with Qwest Communications tells the Wall Street Journal that the money isn’t enough and the speeds are too high, given that reaching rural areas with broadband is already expensive. Faster speeds only add to the cost.
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It is interesting to see the various requests to Congress - both in terms of everything included in the stimulus bill and everything else that Congress will have to deal with. I’m curious to see how Congress will handle all of the competing priorities. Like in this case, I generally support the original proposal and I hope Congress doesn’t get dragged down into a lengthy debate because the telecom companies are complaining about getting a good deal.
The Democrats are touting their first 100 days as the time when they are going to get a tremendous amount accomplished. I hope they do accomplish something significant in the first 100 days. It seemed like the last Congress didn’t accomplish much in 2008. I saw that the Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is asking people to give their opinion on the most important thing for Congress to do in their first 100 days. They’re going to work to get Congress to accomplish what the people actually want them to do. Make sure to add your opinion so Congress can know what we want them to do- http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/email/email4.cfm?id=200