According to The Associated Press, the federal stimulus package included $350 million for digital cartography: making a map of broadband Internet service in the United States. This amount, the AP reported, caught observers by surprise — many thought this could be done for less, like $35 million.

The prime purpose of this map was aiding delivery of stimulus funds to build-out America’s broadband infrastructure, in places such as Maine, where wiring rural communities is billed as the most critical future investment to allow local economies to compete on a global level.

Yet, the AP has found, this map won’t be completed until long after the stimulus money must be allocated. This says, essentially, policymakers will be throwing million-dollar darts blindfolded, without the information needed to ensure money lands where it can do the most good.

And, on top of that, the inflated estimate of $350 million indicates these same policymakers are so uninformed or ignorant of technology that its real costs are misunderstood, or that even offering a king’s ransom for crucial information still can’t deliver it fast enough to be productive.

For all the rhetoric about broadband as an economic and social driver, government struggles with developing practical policies to deliver it. This is true on the federal level, with this stimulus boondoggle, and on the state level with funding to promote rural broadband.

In Maine, the ConnectMaine authority delivers funding to establish broadband in isolated rural pockets: in 2008, state grants benefited projects to serve northern-central Maine, encircling Dover-Foxcroft, and several projects in Downeast Maine, around Jonesport, among others.

While these projects are undoubtedly beneficial on a local level, they cannot masquerade for a comprehensive broadband policy for the state. Unfortunately, as the distressing federal example shows, comprehensive policies might be impossible because the planning hasn’t been done.

There are still bright spots in Maine, though. Smaller, independent Internet
service providers are finding success, town-by-town, tower-by-tower.
This indicates progress on broadband penetration into rural areas is
perhaps more grassroots than thought, and requires a smart plan to
match. 

Without regulatory authority over broadband, assertions policymakers may make about service expansion could be moot. They can make promises, but have little power to deliver on them.

Maine’s slovenly 42nd-in-the-nation ranking on a recent broadband study by an industry group, Speed Matters, illustrates this problem. So does FairPoint Communication’s recent admittance, before state regulators, it will miss its promised October delivery date for broadband expansions in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. 

One thing is certain: throwing money around blindly is not how to do business, or to govern. Yet this is what the stimulus promises to do with $7.2 billion earmarked for broadband development.

Without due diligence, this money should not be spent.

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