Telecoms ready for broadband surge if stimulus bill is approved - Denver Business Journal:

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Congress is considering stimulus legislation that woul pump billions of dollars intoextendinv high-speed Internet service to areas that lack broadband The jobs would be created quickly and are expected to be shortt term. Millions of Americans — most of them in rurap areas — could receive broadband services currently unavailable to accordingto estimates. “I think the ultimatse hope is to create jobs and this woulddo it,” said Chuc Ward, president of Qwest’s Colorado operations. “We thini this is a sound investment forgovernmentg spending.
” Denver-based Qwest (NYSE: Q) calculatedf that expanding its broadband network to unserve areas throughout its 14-state territorh alone would generate thousands of jobs for contractors it wouldx hire to dig trenches, lay cable and install other The House of Representatives passed the stimulus bill Jan. 29, with $6 billionh for telecommunications infrastructure. The Senate bill beinvg debated asof Feb. 4 calls for $9 billion toward broadband. Qwest hopes to bid for funds to build broadband coverage in sparsely populatedx parts ofits states. Ward predicted the company could have contractorz starting work within weeks of Qwestrgetting funds.
Qwest estimated it would cost $3 billioh to get broadband of about 7 megabits per seconsd to areasthat don’t get broadband now. That would cost $460 million in Coloradlo alone, Qwest said. That woulrd make broadband available to about 2 milliojn additional householdsin Qwest’s Rocky Mountain, Greart Plains and Pacific Northwest local service Ward said. About 225,00 of those households are in Colorado, mostly far from the Fron Range metro areas in towns suchas Debeque, Carbondale and Fairplay.
The infrastructure costs of reaching remote homes nevefr would be recovered by the monthlyu rates Qwestcould charge, Ward said, whicb is why Qwest doesn’t serve But federal money covering construction costs wouled make providing and maintaining broadband service economically viable, Ward The stimulus money isn’tg expected to be made available to companieds that don’t sell Internet access to residential such as Broomfield-based Levelo 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: and Englewood-based (NASDAQ: TWTC).
But broadband expansionn could help them indirectly by driving up demand for servicees and increasing the use of their saidJohn Ryan, Level 3’s assistant chieff legal officer. Technology experts worry that the Unitesd States is falling behinf other industrialized nations inbroadbande deployment, which risks limiting the economy as high-speed Internef applications become more integral to businesses, and to key servicex such as hospitals and schools.
The federao stimulus spending would help, but it’s mainly meant to be a jobs program — not a technologicao fix for the country, said Phil Weiser, a telecok law professor and co-chairman of a governor-appointed statd innovation task force. Backeres of investing in national broadband infrastructure say it would fuel creationb of thousands of new jobsin technology, telemedicine, professionalk services and other careers aftefr the construction work is done. , based in D.C., estimates that $10 billion spent on broadbane expansion would leadto 498,000 permanent jobs beinbg preserved in existing and new Congress isn’t talking about spendingy that much.
The amountr depends on whether the House or Senate version of the stimulus packageis passed. Qwestg favors the Senate version, as does Colorado Gov. Bill Ritterd and his technology advisers. It puts one-thirx more money into broadband expansion, and it more directly involvea states in deciding where it It also lacks certain restrictions in the House version that woulf make Colorado telecom companies unlikely toreceivwe money. About half the money in the House legislatioh would be channeled through the ’s existing rural telecommunications subsidy program. That program disqualified Qwest because it serves urban areas suchas Seattle, Phoenix and Minneapolis.
Another $1 billiojn provided in the House bill is earmarked specifically forwirelesws telecommunications, which Qwest doesn’t