With President-elect Barack Obama tossing about multi-hundred-billion-dollar stimulus package numbers, everyone with some access to the incoming administration has plans about how to spend the cash. Free Press is no exception; the group, last seen prodding the FCC to act against Comcast for its P2P blocking techniques, has a plan for spending a modest $44 billion (PDF) over the next three years on broadband. After all, if Obama wants to invest in infrastructure like highways, why not cough it up for the information superhighway?

Compared to the $100 billion EDUCAUSE plan for "big broadband," the Free Press scheme sounds like a bit of a bargain (though it is perhaps less comprehensive in scope). The goals of both groups are the same, though: 100Mbps pipes in both directions.

To get there, Free Press believes that most of the money should be pumped into the infrastructure side of the equation, putting the progressive group firmly in the supply-side camp. The argument here is that broadband demand is strong but that it's not a good value, primarily because of lack of competition. Thus, all the incentive plans call for building out broadband to underserved areas, only funding truly fast connections, and encouraging measures that might lead to something more than a cable/telco duopoly.



Room for improvement (Source: OECD)

Most intriguing of these is the "competitive fiber tax incentive program" ($5 billion) in which tax credits are dished out to companies that lay multiple strands of fiber to an end user's location. The cost of such deployments is largely a function of paying for men and machines to dig up streets, sidewalks, and front yard; the conduit and fiber is comparatively cheap. Any company that wanted to upgrade its network or build a new fiber network could qualify for the credits so long as more than one strand of fiber goes in. The extra fibers could then be sold to third parties or to the customer, a model that Switzerland has recently been experimenting with.

The other ideas are straightforward (though not straightforward enough that we're actually implementing them yet). A full $20 billion of the $44 billion would be spent on Universal Service Fund projects to bring 5Mbps+ connections to every home in America and provide wireless voice and data services to rural and underserved areas. Companies that invest in broadband infrastructure could claim accelerated depreciation for that equipment ($1.5 billion), though with the caveat that it must be new investment into much faster technology; incremental and regularly-scheduled upgrades would not qualify.

On the demand side, Free Press envisions spending a total of $5.8 billion on subsidizing home Internet access in places where it's available, but out of reach economically. Funding would also go toward the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which directs the FCC to actually collect useful data on broadband deployments instead of how many people are served in a given ZIP code.

According to Free Press, the cash fits all the Obama goals for the stimulus. It offers short-term help to telecom companies, workers, and equipment makers. Long term, it will spur web businesses, telecommuting, education, e-health, smart grids, and more. The plan also comes with a set of accountability criteria, including mandatory build-out schedules and audits.

Given the influence such groups will have with the incoming Obama tech team, and given the coalescing conviction among many groups that aiming for 100Mbps fiber has to be the goal of public investment, some version of the basic plan looks quite likely to pass in 2009, whether it makes it into the initial stimulus package or not. Obama, who may be the first US president to really "get" the Internet, has repeatedly stressed the importance of broadband infrastructure and network neutrality; the real surprises will come when we see what actually gets passed, what Congress and the President are willing to spend on it, where the money goes, and just how accountable the entire payout will be.