Urging Broadband Stimulus Spending For the Benefit of All

Arizonans and native Americans at a public forum in Flagstaff, Ariz., urged a broadband buildout that puts connectivity of disadvantaged groups at the heart of the federal stimulus spending. The discussion was the first of three panels on Wednesday's field hearing of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service. On Thursday, the fourth of six days of NTIA/RUS public hearings on how to spend $7.2 billion in the federal broadband stimulus, heads back to Washington. The forums will continue in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. As with Tuesday's field hearing in Las Vegas, the digital divide between America's wealthy bicoastal techorati was contrasted with the wide open, and often offline, regions of the American west.