For years, Internet advocates in the Nashville area have been pushing for more government support for high-speed access, mostly to no avail. But the federal government is moving to change that.
The majority Democrats in the Senate worked out a deal with Republicans last week to pass $7 billion in broadband Internet incentives as part of a more than
$780 billion economic recovery bill. Senate Republicans managed to shave about $2 billion out of the $9 billion in broadband spending late Friday. A vote is expected early this week, but the bill still must be reconciled with a separate House version.
While advocates say the broadband proposals could do a lot to improve access to the Internet in Tennessee and create jobs, critics say the legislation is filled with wasteful spending and won't provide the needed job creation right away.
"We doubt whether either the House or Senate plan will do enough to materially drive additional near-term broadband investment by providers,'' Christopher King, a telecom analyst for investment bank and brokerage Stifel Nicolaus & Co., said last week.
The Republican leadership, which has been fighting the massive economic recovery bill, was equally dismissive.
"The president has outlined two clear goals for this legislation, that it be bipartisan and that it save or create jobs in a timely way,'' said Michael Steel, press secretary for Republican House leader John Boehner of Ohio. "These provisions will not save or create jobs in a timely manner."
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Chattanooga, called the overall bill a "disaster."
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, was one of only 11 Democrats who voted against the House's version of the economic recovery bill when it passed two weeks ago. He has been opposed to deficit spending for years, once referring to the United States as "putting our national priorities on a credit card from the bank of China."
Spokesman John Spragens said Cooper's biggest concern was the $150 billion Medicaid spending expansion. "In general, he supports infrastructure investment but thinks we should be sure that it is genuinely stimulative and creates jobs — and we should recognize that we'll have to pay for these investments over the long term," Spragens said in a statement.
Jobs are aim of billThose in support of the broadband part of the legislation say it will expand the Internet's reach into rural areas and create jobs while producing economic, educational and health-care benefits. The Senate version of the bill includes a mixture of tax credits for private companies and grants to companies, nonprofits or government agencies.
Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, estimates that a $10 billion investment in broadband would produce as many as 498,000 new jobs. "Tennessee could be in a good position to really benefit from that,'' said Michael Ramage, the executive director of Connected Tennessee, a nonprofit that works to promote broadband deployment and already has created maps of Tennessee broadband availability.
Although fully 92 percent of the state's population has access to some type of wireline broadband service, "the areas that are remaining without broadband access are really rural or tough for carriers to get to," he said.
Many of these areas are in West Tennessee between Memphis and Nashville, or in spotted areas around some towns such as Fairview or Dickson.
The broadband proposals provide funding for much faster Internet than what is offered to most residential customers, with download speeds of as much as
45 megabits per second. (Comcast in Nashville claims a top speed of up to 16 megabits per second for residential customers with a technology it calls PowerBoost.)
DTC Communications, a telephone cooperative that serves parts of DeKalb, Cannon, Smith, Wilson and Rutherford counties, offers up to 12 megabits to some homes but doesn't provide broadband to everyone.
"I would definitely apply (for funding)," said the cooperative's chief executive officer, Leslie Greer. "My only real concern is how much is truly going to get into rural areas? Is (the money) going to be gobbled up by the people who have greater resources to write grants and get service to areas that already have broadband?"
He said providing high-speed Internet in rural areas is expensive — the cooperative has spent about $4,000 per broadband customer, with only 6,500 people subscribing to it.
And just because broadband is available doesn't mean everyone will take it.
A Pew Research Center study found that 14 percent of today's dial-up and non-Internet users say they don't subscribe to broadband because it is not available where they live. But far more — 51 percent — say they are just not interested.
Senate Democrats have been seeking $250 million as part of the package to promote broadband adoption. Proponents say those efforts could include helping poor people buy computers and teaching people how to navigate the Web.
But if the goal is to increase broadband adoption, "Does that belong in a stimulus package?" said John Horrigan of the Pew Internet project. "I don't know."
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