Obama's Broadband Plan: Who Stands to Win?

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- The tech sector has a fat pile of stimulus money coming its way.

The Obama administration is allocating $7.2 billion in stimulus money to boost U.S. broadband infrastructure, particularly in remote areas. The national broadband plan, which is being developed by the FCC, will be presented to Congress in February 2010, although there is already plenty of chatter about who the big winners will be.

Five tech companies -- Corning (GLW Quote), ADCT (ADCT Quote), Adtran (ADTN Quote), Cisco (CSCO Quote), and Juniper (JNPR Quote) -- are most likely to snag a ticket for this particular federal stimulus gravy train. The stimulation probably will start early next year as planning efforts turn to equipment orders.

No. 1: Corning

The company, considered by some to be the dominant fiber optic player, has a shot at collecting the biggest windfall from this plan to wire the boonies, and its potential to do so has already caught some speculators' attention. The Corning, N.Y.-based tech shop makes fiber optic cable for use in the network backbone and optical connection boxes for the so-called last mile of the network.

Corning stands to add $80 million a year in new revenue from the broadband stimulus plan, according to estimates by JP Morgan analysts. That would mean $240 million for Corning over the three-year plan, JP Morgan predicts.

No. 2: ADCT

Formerly known as ADC Telecom, the networking gearmaker specializes in local telco equipment used as the on and off ramp to the national communications grid.