Telecommunications Alliance Advocates Un-Served Communities to Get Broadband Stimulus Money

The Rural Telecommunications Alliance has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) saying that while it supports the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which passed the House last week, it wants the money for broadband to go first to un-served areas where there is no existing broadband provider. "We applaud the current safeguards which wisely target the funds for communities that have no current providers of broadband Internet service (i.e. un-served communities)," the group wrote. "These communities should be the first priority for any broadband deployment program. Only once broadband is deployed to each and every rural community should funds be made available for projects in where there is already one broadband provider is already operating (i.e. underserved communities)." The RTA, which represents a number of farm and rural groups, also said some of the broadband money (about $6 billion in the House version, $9 billion in the as-yet-unpassed Senate version), should go to programs aimed at subsidizing low-cost computers, saying the problem is adoption as well as deployment.