Fox Watching the Broadband Henhouse

Highspeed broadband is essential for telework so we’re delighted to see that $7.2 billion of the President’s stimulus package is earmarked for improving our nation’s information highway. There’s a really excellent article on the topic by Drew Clark at BroadbandCensus.com today. They’re an independent non-profit provider of news about broadband technology and internet policy. Naturally, they’ve been weighing in on how those stimulus monies should be spent.

Today’s post suggests that some of the funds should go to developing a cloudsourcing approach to measuring broadband speed, price, and reliability of service rather than relying the providers to self-report. What a concept! Even more radically, Drew suggests we start by measuring where we are with respect to those characteristics so we’ll know whether the stimulus monies are being spent effectively.

Geez, that would be like not only making banks accountable for how they spend their stimulus money, but requiring independent verification. What will they think of next?

This deserves some tweets!