Obama targets planes, trains, automobiles ... and broadband

President Barack Obama used Labor Day to highlight a new plan to invest $50 billion into the nation's infrastructure, including the usual brick-and-mortar "roads, bridges, dams, levees" and, relevant to cable and other service providers, "a smart electric grid that can bring energy to new areas."

In a speech before a labor gathering in Wisconsin, Obama laid out what sounded like a new push for the on-again-off-again national broadband network (NBN).

"We're talking about broadband Internet so that everybody is plugged in," he said. Over the next six months, he said, the money will be used to rebuild 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of rails and 150 miles of runways. What's left, presumably, will be spent on broadband infrastructure.

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