Broadband stimulus details separating likely winners, losers

The so-called 'broadband stimulus chill' is thawing as the federal government's recently released guidelines shed more light on how broadband stimulus funds will be applied. In its second-quarter earnings report today, broadband equipment vendor Adtran said small rural telcos were continuing to free up spending that had been frozen in the first quarter as they puzzled over which plans could coincide with stimulus bids. (The company made similar comments in April, though a rival, Occam Networks, cited the stimulus chill as it cut 10% of its staff in May.) One group of broadband stimulus hopefuls that has been in large part swept out of the running by the specifics of the plan is individual municipalities of any size. Though the stimulus plan stoked broad interest from municipalities earlier this year, many of them have been frustrated by the program's preference for "underserved areas," which the government has defined as areas where at least half of all households lack broadband, where fewer than 40% of households subscribe to broadband, or where no service provider advertises broadband transmission speeds of at least 3 Mb/s.