National broadband plan? We don't need no stinking, national broadband plan, two Senators all but announced Monday, introducing a measure that would require states to build tubes for internet fiber optic cables under every bit of highway or rail they build or modify with federal funds.

And that could be a lot of tubes, given the billions flowing to the states for infrastructure projects as a way to stimulate the economy.

Democratic senators Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Mark Warner (Virginia) introduced the so-called Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2009, which would require many of the so-called 'shovel-ready' projects funded by the stimulus bill earlier this year to also lay conduits capable of carrying fiber optic cables.

If the measure were enacted before Congress's summer break, the bill would be among the first concrete results from a renewed broadband interest from Washington politicians. The feds have already authorized $7.4 billion in spending on rural broadband grants (not yet doled out), and the FCC is hard at work to meet its February deadline for an official National Broadband Plan. After that plan is created, the Obama Administration is expected to ask for even more billions to help get the U.S. out of the broadband also-rans (the country ranked 15th last year).

The bill doesn't require states to lay their own fiber optic cable, just that they build the tubes for the tubes to be placed later (likely by commercial ISPs such as AT&T or Level 3). The sponsors say the bill just makes common sense saying the Federal Highway Administration estimates it's ten times more expensive to dig up and then repair an existing road to lay fiber than it is to put it in when the road is being fixed or built.

"Nobody likes the orange cones and detour signs, or the traffic delays that go with them," Klobuchar said in a press release. "It's even more aggravating when the same road gets torn up again just a year or two later to install underground communication cables."

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from Silicon Valley, has already introduced a companion measure in the House and Google recommended the idea to the FCC last week when it filed comments on the upcoming National Broadband Plan.

Klobuchar was also responsible for last year's bill requiring ISPs to provide more data to the feds about what services are available where – key information when you are trying to eliminate gaps and figure out how much competition actually exists. But not surprisingly, the nation's ISPs don't like that idea, saying they consider that info too sensitive to let their competitors see.

They'll probably like Tuesday's notion better, especially as it puts the cost of the conduits onto the government's ledger.

Photo: Construction of Interstate 95, downtown Richmond by Adolph B. Rice Studio Dated: March 28, 1958 via Library of Virgina/Flickr

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