Yesterday, purely across party lines, the House passed (244-188) the 9 billion stimulus plan, billion of which will go to broadband. The House bill includes a mandate requiring that ISPs who get government funds for deployment must adhere to network neutrality — the term left undefined until the incoming FCC boss, Julius Genochowski, defines it within 45 days after passage.

The Senate version of the bill, made public yesterday (here’s a copy), doles out billion for broadband — and adds a few tax incentives for the nation’s largest carriers, should they be willing to push 5Mbps/1Mbps service into under-served areas, and provide 100Mbps/20Mbps service to already served areas. The Senate version also includes vague network neutrality language:

Lobbyists for wireless and wireline carriers are working hard to get the network neutrality language stripped from both bills, as the differences between the two are hashed out in Congress. A final bill should be ready for Obama’s signing by sometime in mid-February, but it remains unlikely that any network neutrality language will survive the DC broadband lobbyist gauntlet. Still, stranger things have happened.
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