WHY Do we need the Rural Fiber Fund?

Now that I've tested the waters and found little initial resistance to the general concepts of the Rural Fiber Fund let's start getting into the specifics.

First off let's lay out the case for WHY the Rural Fiber Fund is so important, both in how aligned it is with the goals of the upcoming economic stimulus package and how it will empower our country by bringing the most critical infrastructure for the 21st century to all Americans.

Why should we create a Rural Fiber Fund? Five reasons:

1. It will create jobs.
By building the networks...
*** Half of what's spent goes directly into labor.
*** High quality jobs are created.

By having the networks...
*** It supports the creative class in producing content and reaching customers.
*** It promotes the insourcing of jobs to rural communities (like this one).
*** It lays the foundation for the creation of jobs in the digital economy.

2. It will bolster rural economies.
*** By attracting new businesses that rely on high speed connectivity (like these).
*** By retaining existing businesses and helping them grow.
*** By bringing about new efficiencies to existing processes across all facets of society.

3. It will secure rural America's future.
*** By not saddling rural communities' tomorrows with yesterday's technologies.
*** By equipping them with infrastructure good for the rest of the century.

4. It will reassert America's global leadership in telecommunications.
*** No other country has embarked on a comprehensive plan to wire all of their rural areas with fiber.
*** By setting that as a clear goal and pursuing pragmatic policies to achieve it, we will move our rural communities to the front of the line relative to their ability to compete in the digital economy versus their counterparts in other countries.

5. Existing mechanisms aren't sufficient to accomplish the task.
*** With deploying fiber risky even in non-rural areas and credit markets frozen for everyone, private capital won't and can't step up alone to finance wiring rural America with fiber.
*** Existing government programs don't have sufficient capital to tackle this challenge, and new efficiencies need to be found in transforming government money, guarantees, and tax breaks into rapid, widespread deployment.

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Tomorrow I'll share an initial outline for WHAT Should a Rural Fiber Fund do? Then the the start of a discussion over HOW on Friday. Come Monday these will all be loaded up into a wiki that I'm gathering a crack team of experts to collaborate on with as much public involvement as we can possibly foster.

What I'll be asking all of them and all of you to do is add/expand/refine ideas and contribute links to any relevant research that supports the arguments we're trying to make in justifying the allocation of billions to the challenge of wiring rural America with fiber.

If we all work together by the end of next week I'm confident we can have a more fleshed out framework with some initial costs to be able to present to our hard-working Congressional counterparts so that we can translate these new ideas and good intentions into commonsense policies that can help this economic stimulus package have a huge impact in helping grow America our way out of this current morass.