Report: Broadband Stimulus Funds Won't Suffice

The $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding is not even close to enough to deploy truly universal broadband access, according to a new study from Insight Research. The company estimates that half the US households either use dial-up access or lack Internet service and projects that an estimated 40 million households will still lack broadband access by the end of 2014. The firm then takes that figure and divides it by the actual amount of money going toward deployment on broadband to determine that the government has allocated just $164 per household. Insight Research claims that it takes about $1,500 per household to deploy broadband, bringing the amount of money needed for universal access to $60 billion.