Stimulus slow to break ground but generating jobs

Nearly six months after the first broadband stimulus awards for infrastructure projects were announced, many award winners have not yet been able to break ground on their projects, although they expect to soon.

A key concern is securing the availability of funds, which are administered by either the Rural Utilities Services or the National Telecommunications and Information Agency — and those agencies have been struggling with unprecedented workloads as a result of the stimulus program. In the mean time, award winners seem to be doing their best to accomplish as much as they can prior to securing funding — including making network engineering plans and, for some companies, undertaking the process of selecting outside construction firms. Some have even hired a few new people, a sign that the stimulus program is already making progress on achieving one of its key goals: job creation.