ABSTRACT
A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD Seven billion dollars may seem like a lot of money, but the U.S. government often speaks in terms of trillions for economic recovery, so it was only a drop in the bucket-though a rather large drop. The U.S. Congress, in its efforts to stimulate the economy, set aside billions of dollars to establish the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). The idea was to reach underserved or even unserved areas with broadband channels as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The BTOP made infrastructure grants available to give Americans faster access to the Internet. The grants would be important to the future of both old and new media, including the most popular medium of all, television. The question raised by policy makers was by what rules the money would be allocated to upgrade public computing centers, community colleges, and public libraries. “Nondiscrimination” became the key word for industry and political leaders who sought to level the playing field for new competition with so many federal dollars at stake.
