From Bill St. Arnaud, CANARIE

Here is a good paper referenced in the Cook Report that demonstrates the impact of broadband on GDP. While most other studies  have done a lot of waving about the impact of broadband, this paper is the most analytical I have seen in some time.

The $15 billion broadband bonus

As governments talk about economic stimulus, what this paper demonstrates is that the biggest bang for the buck will probably be in broadband deployment. While digging sewers and building bridges is important, the leveraging of such investments in terms of creating new economic opportunities is nowhere close to that of broadband deployment.

But its also important that we make the right investment in broadband. It cannot and should not reinforce existing duopolies. It must enable a competitive environment and a level playing field. That is how we will maximize innovation and economic leverage.

Brough Turner gives several good example of this type of investment through customer owned networks in a recent talk he gave at Emerging Communications Conference

Slides at: http://www.slideshare.net/eComm2008/brough-turners-presentation-at-ecomm-2008

Audio at: : http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3719.html

Also FreePress, a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media, argues for the same solution for the US through a $5 billion investment ... "An innovative idea that has been successful abroad, this proposal is designed to deploy world class fiber-optic networks which are shared by multiple competitors. This program would award higher levels of investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation to entities that deploy more than a single strand of fiber to an end user for the purpose of selling the fiber to a competitive provider. In addition, the program would allow all taxes on sales of the additional fiber to qualifying third parties to be completely deferred for five years. This approach would spur competition in the broadband market, encouraging demand and innovation ..."