All Eyes on D.C. as Broadband Stimulus Funds Near - Page 2

Page 2 of 2

As the NTIA and RUS begin reviewing competing applications from ISPs across the country, they will have several factors to weigh.

For Chip Pickering, a former Republican representative from Mississippi who remains an active voice in telecom policy, the most worthy applicants will be established companies that can live up to their build-out commitments.

"It's very important that they go to economically viable commercial entities that are sustainable over the long term," Pickering said.

Then there is also the matter of determining which parts of the country are in the greatest need. One region may not technically count as "unserved" if there are low-level broadband services available, but if those networks offer connection speeds of only a few hundred kilobits per second, the area might still deserve of a grant. Likewise, if robust broadband is widely available, but only a small portion of residents say they can afford it, that area might be worthy of federal assistance as well.

"We need to make sure that we put broadband where it isn't as a first order of business," Scott said, though he is adamant that the NTIA should consider minimum connection speeds as it evaluates the grant applications.

"We're concerned that stimulus dollars not be use to promote obsolete networks," he said.

The stimulus bill directs the NTIA to set nondiscrimination rules for grant recipients, which will attach some form of Net neutrality provisions to the money.

Erickson, whose group gives voice to Web firms in the Net neutrality debate, remains hopeful that the nondiscriminatory requirements won't drive away potential bidders. He recalled last year's 700MHz spectrum auction, where an open-access condition was attached to the most valuable portion of the spectrum.

The company that protested most loudly against the requirement, Verizon Wireless, ended up the auction's largest bidder, spending nearly $10 billion and acquiescing to the open-access provision.

"Some of the rhetoric tends to get blown out of proportion," he said. "The notion that openness conditions and having an open Internet is some how in tension with being able to have investments with open infrastructure has largely been repudiated."