

Stimulus can't hit the broad(band) side of a barn - clp16
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/11/obama-is-missing-the-broadband-boat.html
It is funny that for such a strong industry, the proponents for an increase in the nation's technical infrastructure are so quiet compared to the proponents for "green" tech.
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dnautics
"if America added five more broadband connections for every 100 people, the
productivity benefit would exceed $50 billion, contributing at least 0.5
percent to GDP."

WOW. 0.5% to GDP. Wouldn't this probably cost $100 billion to implement?

Isn't a $50B improvement in productivity a bit rosy? I don't have broadband
(at home, I have it at work). Where would that productivity gain come from?
Being able to watch youporn better? Or Facebook? Or forwarding lolcats 10
times faster?

~~~
clp16
An infrastructure investment like this one needs to be seen from the
perspective of a one time capital expenditure. A savings of $50 billion isn't
a one time boost, but a year over year contribution to the economic growth. In
this light, it would pay itself off extremely quickly.

The article also mentions a 0.5% to 1.5% improvement in the efficiency of
public-sector work. By just considering the federal government's budget, a 1%
improvement would in itself be a $30 billion improvement.

Examples of productivity increases could easily be seen in the emergence of
effective telecommuting. In the Washington DC area, so much time is lost to
managing the traffic nightmare. If the broadband speeds existed for agencies
to allow for employees to work from home, teleconference when needed, have
uninterrupted access to their work data, the savings would be enormous.

Also, companies like Google are investing in high speed connections because
many of them see it as a limiting factor towards new innovation. Meaning, that
no one really knows what is to come out of connecting homes to gigabit+ lines,
but it is one of the promising sectors for increased growth.

An interesting project at Case Western Reserve is hooking up some of the low
income homes around the campus to see what types of possibilities can be
gleaned by dropping this service on people.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870395490457510...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575109911233889350.html)

Finally, the point I wanted to highlight, but obviously missed doing so, was
to ask why "green" tech advocates seem so much more adept at convincing the
government that they provide stimulus than information technology advocates.

