The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released its first estimates for gross domestic product, the measure of our nation’s output and consumption. It was not encouraging.

The annual increase in GDP is at 2.4% for the second quarter of 2010. This is down from a revised 3.7% for the first quarter of 2010.

More telling of the state of broadband demand is the state of computer purchases. Final sales of computers accounted for .04 percentage point of the change in GDP for the second quarter, compared to an addition of .10 percentage points to the overall change in GDP in the first quarter of 2010.

What does this imply for broadband demand? Well, you can’t ride the super information highway without a computer. What’s even more troubling is that for the past 17 months, the FCC has wasted time and resources pushing a net neutrality policy that does not nothing for increasing facility deployment, reducing consumer prices, or increasing consumer demand.

Net neutrality may end up compounding the neutralization of consumer demand for broadband if GDP numbers keep declining this way.