The scramble for broadband funds

It's never easy to hand out money, especially when it's $7 billion in broadband employment grants over the next couple of years that nearly everyone wants a piece of.

The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which are allocating the money, want to make sure the cash goes to the right places to develop broadband in inaccessible areas.

"This process of handing out $7 billion, although there's a great deal of urgency to get the money out the door, must fundamentally be data driven," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform group. "We need to make sure the money is spent wisely, on projects that deliver the biggest bang for the buck for the American taxpayer."

Scott added in some cases that money should go to areas that already have broadband. In other cases, local companies and community-based groups should be able to receive broadband grants.

"We're concerned that stimulus dollars not be used to build obsolete networks," Scott said. "If we want to make sure that...we're not simply re-creating a digital divide by building a substandard network that then has to take another leap to catch up."

For more on the state of play for broadband:
- check out this PCWorld.com article