Obama's Broadband Punt

[Commentary] The US is squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to modernize its digital footprint.

The die was cast almost two years ago when President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus lobbed a disappointing $7 billion toward broadband: mainly grants to help municipal, nonprofit, and private entities connect rural digital backwaters. By contrast, green energy received 13 times more funding. Now, with unemployment beached at 9.8 percent, it looks as though President Obama made the wrong bet. President Obama's flunks the test as short-term stimulus. Due to a complex tender process, the Department of Commerce (allotted most of the $7 billion) finalized its 233 grants only two months ago; in dozens of cases, environmental-impact assessments are causing delays. More seriously, it undersells the need for long-term transformation.

The goal set by Obama’s National Broadband Plan is 100 million households (of about 130 million nationwide) accessing world-class speeds of 100 megabits per second by 2020. Encouragingly, the private sector is already inching America toward this target. Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest have committed to build high-speed fiber past 50 million homes in the next two years; cable-television companies also plan upgrades. But these expansions are concentrated in dense areas that are profitable to serve, leaving pockets of the country languishing.