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The stimulus is about jobs in 6 and 18 months, not transforming the telecom industry and Internet connectivity. Blair Levin, who led the FCC transition team, had orders from the top: the stimulus is about jobs - fast. Blair believes the U.S. should have a "ubiquitous world class communications network." So he's already thinking about what will be the next step as the Obama administration seeks to bring an extraordinary Internet to all Americans.

Jessica Rosenworcel, the Senate staffer who wrote much of the actual bill, agreed the priority was a "short term economic stimulus priming the pump, spending quickly but prudently." The long term infrastructure effect also mattered, but was secondary. Both were speaking at a remarkable conference in D.C., Implementing the Broadband Stimulus: Maximizing Benefits and Monitoring Performance, put together by Columbia and Georgetown, two days after the bill was signed.

Broadband could have received much more - perhaps $20B - from the stimulus if people thought the money would be well spent to create jobs within 18 months. Projects many of us supported - fiber to every U.S. home, big price discounts for service to poor people - aren't in the stimulus because they couldn't make enough progress fast enough (fiber everywhere) or they added few jobs (connecting poor people, because that doesn't require much labor.)