Editorial

Speaker Johnson, it is time to call a vote. In less than four weeks, over 23 million U.S.

Some 23 million households receive broadband subsidies through the Affordable Connectivity Program, which is more than the number on food stamps. Households qualify if they earn 200% or less than the poverty line or participate in other welfare programs such as Medicaid. This includes relatively affluent households with public-school students in localities like New York City that provide universal free school meals. Broadband providers have said in recent earnings calls that they don’t expect to lose many subscribers once the program ends.

The US Congress faces an imminent decision about the future of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and the connectivity it delivers to 23 million households.

We’re living in the age of broadband internet—internet service providers (ISPs) are announcing major infrastructure investments, committing to fund significant network upgrades and building new high speed service in communities across the country. At the same time, the federal government is also investing unprecedented amounts to support the deployment of broadband in underserved areas.

In a field focused on maps and megabytes, speed and latency, those of us working to realize universal, equitable broadband can sometimes lose sight of what connectivity can mean for people’s day-to-day lives. Today, we are launching some phenomenal research by EveryoneOn CEO Norma E. Fernandez that not only expertly applies the tools of in-depth, careful, and closely observed, qualitative research, but does so to focus on often overlooked groups—low-income African American/Black and Latina women.

A private equity firm based in Canada may prevent a lot of rural US Midwesterners from getting fiber broadband. But that’s OK with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) because it’s all perfectly legal. Mercury Broadband, which is majority owned by the private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners, has claimed it covers vast swathes of Michigan, Kansas and Indiana with its fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband service.

The Minnesota Department of Employment of and Economic Development (DEED) is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Office of Broadband Development (OBD) and the ten grant rounds that followed.

The United States has lately gotten serious about broadband expansion, with the federal government spending tens of billions of dollars to deploy services all over the country — especially in rural areas, where coverage is sparse. But how widely connectivity is available matters little if consumers can’t afford it.

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to raise taxes through its Universal Service Fund—a regressive, hidden tax on consumers' phone bills that funds a series of unaccountable, bloated internet subsidy programs. Rather than giving the FCC carte blanche to expand its balance sheet, Congress must reform the USF's structural problems, reevaluate its component programs, and get the FCC's spending under control. Here is my plan to do that. 

Poor infrastructure, small number of customers, bottom of the list: That is the story of rural broadband in the United States. The situation is much more than an annoyance for the 7 million U.S. households that still do not have access to broadband internet — 90 percent of them in rural areas. Many times that number are “underserved,” with speeds below 100 mbps, or have high-speed broadband infrastructure but can’t afford service.