ReasonedResponse.com

So when the dust finally settles, the Broadband provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are actually pretty good.

There is some money, to be doled out by the Department of Agriculture for rural broadband projects, and by the Department of Commerce for innovation.  Not a lot of money, but that may be a good thing.

There is a requirement that the FCC develop a national broadband plan within a year.  A reasonable time frame and a good project that falls well within the mission of the FCC.  I look forward to reading what is proposed, and throwing in a few ideas of my own.

And there is a requirement for a broadband mapping project, which can only lead to better coverage of broadband.

Of course, I also like it because it dropped all of the lunatic language about mandatory open access and network neutrality (which in case you missed it, has once again morphed to mean something different than it used to).  That kind of nonsense rhetoric has no place is a serious discussion of broadband policy, something that even Google now seems to have conceded.

So I look forward to the year ahead, to the evolution of a national broadband plan, and to an improving economy.  And, if there is indeed a good in heaven, a decent wine crop worldwide to help produce the Cabernet Sauvignon I desire to drink while I read the various proposals and platforms.