About $7.2 billion of the federal stimulus bill is allocated to "expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S."

Sounds like new poles in old neighborhoods. But that's not what many are looking to do with the funding -- across the country and in Western Pennsylvania.

The Commerce and Agriculture departments have received almost 2,200 requests totalling $28 billion in aid, almost four times the amount available. And some local applications interpret broadband expansion as a byproduct of loftier projects.

Tracking sexual predators in the Woodland Hills School District. Bringing laptops to communities without a library. Recording original hip-hop music in a housing project. These are just some of the high-tech Pittsburgh proposals looking to the federal government for funding.

There are 130 applications from Pennsylvania seeking funds from the plan, but no one's breaking ground or booting up just yet.

The applications are being reviewed for the first round of funding -- about $4 billion -- which will be announced no earlier than Nov. 7.

Some applicants have resolved to forge ahead even if they fail to win the government's help.

Take the proposal submitted by Muni-Link, a nonprofit government consulting business based on the North Side. It wants almost $1 million to construct a wireless system called OmniNet in the Woodland Hills School District.

OmniNet would use a GPS-like technology to track sexual predators and criminals on parole or probation who live in the district and aren't permitted on school grounds. If they began to encroach on school property, authorities would be automatically notified.

"This monitoring system is a lot cheaper than incarceration costs. It costs $5 per day per person," said Muni-Link director David Demko.

The Woodland Hills project is a pilot program intended to expand even if stimulus funding falls through.

Another North Side concern, SLB Radio Productions, which produces the long-running show "Saturday Light Brigade," broadcast from the Children's Museum on WRCT-FM, is asking for $275,000 -- one of the smallest requests in the state.

SLB Radio wants to build two mini-broadcasting stations in the housing communities of Northview Heights on the North Side and Bedford Dwellings in the Hill District. There, students can develop radio programming such as spoken word readings, hip hop performances or even record the oral histories of their elderly neighbors.

The audio programming would air on Internet radio, available online or through Internet radios that retail for less than $100. SLB Radio's grant request includes funding to outfit every home in the housing communities with an Internet radio.

The government initiative was designed "to help reach out to groups that have not historically participated equally in the Internet," said Jon Peha, the chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "I'm glad people are thinking creatively," he said. "But while creative solutions to problems are welcome, they still have to be solutions."

Some local applications are conventional. A project called Pittsburgh CONNECTS seeks $784,000 to open four computer cafes in the Hill District, Garfield, South Side Hilltop and East Liberty areas. The Pennsylvania Office of Administration, which reviewed the applications, placed this project among 13 on its highly recommended list.

Also making the state's list and seizing the priority on rural communities, DQE Communications wants more than $10 million to help expand its broadband services from the metro area to parts of Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties.

Manager David Weber called the stimulus opportunity a "godsend" but said his company probably won't continue with the plan if the application is rejected.

The stimulus funding couldn't come at a better time for some organizations. The Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh is down to one computer learning lab since library trustees decided this month to close the East Liberty branch.

The state also highly recommended its proposal, which would use almost $260,000 to help fund a mobile computer lab. Access to laptops could translate into general learning sessions and also give unemployed workers a chance to browse online job postings, said library communications manager Suzanne Thinnes. Another library organization -- the Allegheny County public libraries -- is seeking almost $1.5 million to soup-up public computer centers in 73 libraries. The executive director of the Electronic Information Network, Rebecca Serey, said the recession that necessitated the stimulus also has necessitated the organization's need for a financial boost.

"Staff have reported that people are saving money by terminating Internet access at home," she said. "That puts us in high demand."

Then there is the issue of what to do when broadband access reaches an underserved community. A company based in Pittsburgh, Brinksman Consulting and Trading Group, Inc., wants $200,000 to help fund a guidebook for the unconnected communities unsure how to handle the high-tech addition.

"This is not infrastructure. We're aiming to provide a workbook for the smallish rural telephone company that doesn't have a planning department," said proposal partner Clifford Holliday.

Not that all Pennsylvania applicants are seeking six figures. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center wants more than $38 million to help fund a Connected Medicine Telehealth Network.

The grant request totals more than three times the sum of all other area requests and was highly recommended by the state.

The Telehealth Network would provide rural hospitals in Pennsylvania with video conferencing equipment so patients can confer with specialists at other locations. On the other side of the state, a Philadelphia proposal wants to expand broadband to the underserved population of five prisons. And another seeks more than $800,000 to implement a Wii Generations program for the elderly.

Washington correspondent Daniel Malloy writes the "Pittsburgh On The Potomac" blog exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.