By the Time the Broadband $ is Spent, It Won't be "Stimulus"

For all of the interest companies now are showing in the $7.2 billion broadband access spending that is supposed to happen as part of the "stimulus" package, it is possible the only people who will "get" any incremental money any time soon are lawyers and consultants who claim they can help clients get some of the money.

A large percentage of the money for broadband in the stimulus package won't be spent until 2011 or later, says Jeffrey Eisenach, chairman and managing partner of Empiris, an economic consulting firm. The money, split between the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will go out in the form of grants, and neither agency is currently set up to allocate billions of dollars, he says.

"In 2014, you're not going to need stimulus in this economy," says Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-focused think tank. "There's a sort of half-life for stimulus spending."