Kyle Hopkins

Reporting has found that the Federal Communications Commission's multibillion-dollar Universal Service Fund pays for what often amounts to slow internet access for customers who actually no longer use it. Once home to thousands of sailors and their families, the island emptied after the base closed in 1997. While the state estimated the population to be 77 last year, residents themselves put it at closer to two dozen—meaning the federal internet subsidy to the local telecom amounts to about $14,000 a year per person.

In Alaska, where many communities can only be reached by plane or boat, the Federal Communications Commission has given telecommunications companies $4.6 billion in Universal Service Fund subsidies since 2016. That’s more than $600 per Alaskan per year. More per resident than in any other state. Yet after all that spending, Alaska still ranks near the bottom for access to the very land-based, high-speed internet service the money was meant to deliver. Some communities have yet to be wired at all.