What I Think of the Broadband Stimulus So Far

Here's what I think makes a lot of sense:

a) NTIA and RUS are obvious funding mechanisms for the investments being made. While the majority of the funds being released are heading to rural American infrastructure development RUS (more on that in a moment), there seems to be some reason for this. RUS has been developing actual, physical networks (power, phones, now broadband) for quite some time. They have institutional capacity.

b) Seiffert makes interesting point: As the ARRA stipulates, the NTIA's mandate is to address questions of "underserved and unserved", while RUS's is to deal with "urban and rural, focusing on the rural". How these distinctions are negotiated (if not politicked) will, in my estimation, be the crux of the success (or otherwise) of this broadband program.