BEAD’s Groundhog Day Moment
According to Albert Einstein, insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Congress is taking this to a whole new level with its latest discussions about how to “fix” broadband internet deployment across the United States. The most vociferous criticisms of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program have centered on how long it has taken to deploy. On its face, that is a fair criticism. Contextualized, however, the criticism does not hold water. No one is asking why it took so long. The simple answer: Maps. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a series of maps over the years that were deficient at best. States had to get into the mapmaking business; after a decade of pushing billions out to providers with precious little oversight and no appreciable urgency to “get it right,” the states had to reinvent the wheel. To the critics of the lengthy BEAD process, I have one thing to say: You cannot use Federal incompetence as both a sword and shield. The states are in this boat due to lack of Federal foresight, faulty implementation, and next-to-zero oversight over the last decade and more. Now is not the time to short circuit BEAD. Now is not the time to deploy broadband internet on the cheap. We have been there, done that, and that is precisely what landed us in this mess to begin with.
Louis Riggs is a State Representative in the Missouri House of Representatives from Hannibal, Missouri.
BEAD’s Groundhog Day Moment