Analysis

In a November 4, 2021, memo sent to state broadband offices that are participating in The Pew Charitable Trusts’ technical assistance program, the “Broadband Education and Training Initiative,” Pew experts explored how states use scoring metrics to evaluate broadband grant applications. The choice and weight of metrics should reflect each state’s priorities in order to ensure funded projects will advance state goals and deliver meaningful benefits to residents.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission launched a proceeding seeking public comment on creating a mechanism to ensure access to accurate, simple-to-understand information about broadband Internet access services. The aim is to enable consumers to comparison shop when choosing broadband services and providers that best meet their needs and match their budgets.

When we ask people why they don’t have home broadband, the primary response in every survey is the cost of broadband. So prices be part of the definition of broadband? There is a huge difference between a 100/20 Mbps connection that costs $55 and one that costs $85. As far as the public is concerned, these are not the same product—but we pretend that they are. Of course, there is nothing that scares the big cable companies more than talking about regulating broadband prices.

The recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act makes the largest federal investment into universal broadband access in history. In doing so, Congress gave broadband responsibility to the states, with the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) providing oversight.  This piece lays out eight steps NTIA should take to improve the odds of success in achieving universal connectivity:

This is our 6th entry in Keller & Heckman's blog series on the major provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Previous blog entries examined the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, the $1 billion Middle Mile grant program, the Act’s support for broadband partnerships, the Affordable Connectivity Program, and the Act’s key cybersecurity provisions. This post reviews the Act’s provisions aimed at promoting digital equity by increasing broadband adoption and accessibility.

To accomplish the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's broadband goals, Congress made states the key decision-makers, with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration providing oversight. This piece lays out nine actions every state should take in the development and implementation of its broadband plan:

For so many people living in rural or low-income city neighborhoods, access to high-speed fiber-fed broadband would be a game-changer. Jobs are going remote, school is taught at a distance, and broadband is opening the door to telemedicine, reducing the need for trips to the doctor, but many people across the country still have no access to these options.

Fiber-optic cable, which carries 95 percent of the world’s international internet traffic, links up pretty much all of the world’s data centers, those vast server warehouses where the computing happens that transforms all those 1s and 0s into our experience of the internet. Where those fiber-optic connections link up countries across the oceans, they consist almost entirely of cables running underwater—some 1.3 million kilometers (or more than 800,000 miles) of bundled glass threads that make up the actual, physical international internet.

Communities across the United States have gotten an unexpected gift from the Biden Administration in the form of additional flexibility to use American Rescue Plan funds for needed broadband investments, particularly those focused on low-income neighborhoods in urban areas. When Congress developed and passed the American Rescue Plan Act, it tasked the Treasury Department with writing the rules for some key programs, including the State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF).

As a cautionary tale to any city that provides broadband, incumbent internet service providers (ISPs) are always going to push back on city initiatives. In 2021, the city of Tucson (AZ) launched a free wireless network to bring broadband to students in homes without broadband. Tucson recognized the need for the network when it got requests for over 7,000 wireless access points from students during the pandemic. The city then decided that the best long-term solution to the large numbers of unserved students was to create a private network using CBRS spectrum.