Summary
When free isn't free Who are the lobbies? Where's the profit?
Analysis
" Free money! Free money!" That's the claim. But "free" it isn't. Past practices being an indication of what's to come, stimulus dollars to broadband will come with an after-the-fact mandate for specific (translation: not profitable) expenditures.
To be told who must get service, how they must get it, and, possibly, what they should pay for it is as dangerous an intrusion as the regulation of salaries in the financial marketplace.
Further, there are multiple lobbies waiting in the wings. One example, American Radio Relay League, the primary spokes-organization for amateur radio, will take issue with broadband over power lines.
BPL technology represents one of the cheapest routes for expansion of rural Internet access. ARRL and other groups can, at minimum, delay implementation, upsetting the price point dynamic that competition would bring.
A more likely scenario will be rejection of stimulus entirely followed by government run expansion of the Internet into rural areas. The only way to avoid it is to allow private industry to expand in a logical, profitable manner...no strings attached.
