As the sluice gates of stimulus open, proponents of expanded broadband access are hoping the Net will catch some of the cash Congress is preparing to pump into the economy. An impressive array of telecoms, trade associations, tech companies, think tanks, and advocacy groups have issued a "Call to Action," introduced at an event on Capitol Hill today, urging the incoming Obama administration and the 111th Congress to make implementation of a comprehensive national broadband strategy a high priority.

The coalition of signatories behind the Call to Action brings together a number of heavy hitters often found aiming their punches at one another: AT&T, Verizon, and the Telecommunications Industry Association dancing cheek-to-cheek with Google, Public Knowledge, and Free Press. This kumbayah moment was midwifed by attorney James Baller, who explained the strange bedfellows' manifesto at Wednesday's launch event.

Setting the stage

This initial document is short, sweet, and fairly broad, but sets the stage for a more specific set of recommendations, which the signatories are expected to unveil this coming spring. Its central premise is that the federal government, in collaboration with state governments and the private sector, must undertake a conscious—and massive—project to build up the nation's digital infrastructure, much as it did in past centuries with rail, highway, and telephone infrastructure. Other countries, the document notes, have outstripped the Internet's birthplace in broadband penetration and speed by means of a variety of policy instruments, including "tax incentives, low-interest loans, subsidies, public-private partnerships, competition policy, and many other forms of direct and indirect support by all levels of government." The "Call to Action" later suggests that "efficient use of spectrum" may also help to bring broadband to underserved areas.

The elephant in any room that brings together Free Press and the telecom industry, of course, is net neutrality, and the broad goals laid out for the proposed National Broadband Strategy treat the question delicately. They stipulate that "access to the Internet should, to the maximum extent feasible, be open to all users, service providers, content providers, and application providers," but also that network operators "must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards."

The overarching goal, however, won universal assent: A chicken in every pot, and a set of fat pipes running into "every American home, business, and public and private institution."

Broadband as stimulus

As Baller noted, the economic stimulus bill that will almost certainly be the incoming Congress' first order of business provides an opportunity to pass "double duty" legislation—politically salable as a defibrillator for arrested markets, but more valuable in the long term as an investment in a platform for innovation and democratic participation.

Several representatives of the signatory groups, who spoke on two panels following Baller's introduction, echoed and elaborated that point. Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America union, was (unsurprisingly) most enthusiastic about the prospect of underwriting a massive increase in telecom-sector jobs. CWA is proposing an injection of some $5 billion in broadband stimulus, which the group estimates could create almost 100,000 new telecom and IT jobs in a single year—a 10 percent increase in that workforce.

But, argued Cohen, it's not just his own members who would benefit: A faster communications network would act as a conduit for the delivery of new products and services—and new firms to supply them—making the "multiplier effect" on investment in broadband especially large. A seven percentage point boost in infrastructure investment, the group claims, could spur the creation of some 2.4 million new jobs across the economy. AT&T Senior Vice President Jim Cicconi, meanwhile, suggested that each percentage point increase in broadband adoption would bring 220,000 jobs.

Rolling out the fiber is only part of the equation, however, as several participants noted. Promoting actual adoption of broadband, argued Ben Scott, is the other, oft-neglected half of any viable broadband strategy. That's more difficult than it may sound, as people in underserved areas often lack the computer equipment and skills needed to participate meaningfully in the online world—and may lack a sense of what they have to gain from getting online. Robert Atkinson, head of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, suggested that the federal and state Lifeline and Link-up programs, which subsidize telephone service for the poor, could be repurposed to underwrite computer equipment purposes and training for the same population. As for selling the benefits of Internet access, he pointed to his organization's "Digital Quality of Life" report, released last month, which suggests a broad array of social benefits that could flow from universal broadband.

Working out the details

But the devil is always in the details: As Free Press' Scott observed, there's no shortage of white papers on the digital infrastructure problem that "start and they say 'broadband,' and they end and they say 'yay,' but the middle is a question mark." (Think of South Park's Underpants Gnomes.) Telecommunications Industry Association President Grant Seiffert underscored the point by stressing that telecoms needed "certainty in regulation and certainty in capital markets," and that early investment in deployment could be undermined by unfunded mandates or burdensome regulations. Read between the lines ever so slightly and you might detect the lucre lubricant that's reducing the friction between these groups: If the handout is big enough, nobody will much care what strings are attached.

One tentative attempt to fill in the details was offered by Charles Benton, whose eponymous Foundation today released an "Action Plan for America" on broadband. In addition to a hail of bullet points specifying task forces to create and tax credits to offer, the proposal contains a draft executive order for president-elect Obama's consideration.

Of course, if a line of fiber were laid for every coalition that springs up to tout universal broadband, we'd already be living in a William Gibson novel. But the combined economic and political muscle of the "Call to Action" signatories—along with an economic crisis that has opened the door to ambitious government projects that would have seemed impossible a year ago—might be enough to make it happen.