By Kevin Walsh
There’s been a lot of talk lately over using the upcoming MOASP (mother of all stimulus packages) to promote something called “universal broadband." Numbers as high as $100 billion have been casually bandied about. While noble sounding, this phrase also sounds suspiciously like “energy independence,” something all politicians profess to want but which remains stubbornly elusive. Just what does “universal broadband” mean?
Most would probably assume it means 100 percent of US households have a broadband connection. Although that may sound like a straightforward definition it’s really not.
There are 128.2 million housing units in the US. Do politicians intend to string broadband to each of those housing units? That probably wouldn’t make sense since only 110.7 million are occupied.
