Stimulated Internet

The $787 billion stimulus bill set aside up to $350 million to create a national broadband map that could guide policies aimed at expanding high-speed Internet access. According to AP, it is also to figure out where broadband Internet access is available and how fast it is. The NTIA also wants extensive data on that behind-the-scenes Internet infrastructure. Officially, the goal for the map is to help shape broadband policy and determine where best to invest the $7.2 billion in stimulus money earmarked for broadband programs.

In addition to the NTIA's mapping project, there's a parallel push at the FCC to gather more detailed data on broadband subscribers. Both efforts are designed to aid the Administration in setting telecom policy, said Colin Crowell, a senior counselor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Of course the mapping will not be done by the February 2010 release date of a national broadband plan being developed by the Federal Communications Commission, which is also mandated by the stimulus bill.

North Carolina's state broadband authority e-NC already maintains a map of broadband availability in the state, detailed enough to list individual addresses, according to executive director Jane Smith Patterson.

Rory Altman, director at telecommunications consulting firm Altman Vilandrie & Co., which has helped clients map broadband availability, said $350 million was a "ridiculous" amount of money to spend on a national broadband map. The firm could create a national broadband map for $3.5 million, and "would gladly do it for $35 million," Altman said.

Dave Burstein, editor of the DSL Prime broadband industry newsletter, believes a reasonable cost for the map would be less than $30 million.

Internet service providers have already committed to handing over data about where they have broadband coverage, so the main job will be to collect and translate that information into a map.

When the Pew Internet and American Life Project surveyed people who didn't have broadband in 2007 and 2008, it found that most of them aren't interested in it, find the Internet too hard to use, or don't have computers.