Elizabeth Warren: Here’s how we get broadband Internet to rural America

Internet service providers (ISPs) have been able to get away with fostering pseudo-monopolies because they spend a lot of money to keep the regulatory environment and the conversation surrounding it murky. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has been an effective agent for ISPs. He led the charge to dismantle net neutrality in 2018, and he has done everything in his power to stop municipalities from building their own broadband infrastructure. He also attempted to gut the FCC’s Lifeline program, one of the few tools the federal government has to provide Internet to low-income consumers.

Enough is enough. As president, I would work to ensure every home in the United States has an affordable, broadband connection. I have a plan for a new public option for broadband Internet, carried out by a new Office of Broadband Access that would manage an $85 billion federal grant program. Only electricity and telephone cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, tribes, cities, counties and other state subdivisions would be eligible for grants. There is both a moral and an economic imperative to enact a public option for broadband. If we stay on our current trajectory, ISPs will continue to decide which communities succeed and which ones fail. We imperil the success of future generations, threaten our competitiveness on the global stage and risk further diaspora from towns and cities that are in dire need of economic turnaround. Providing universal, public access to broadband won’t be easy. The ISPs aren’t interested in competition and will fight to keep the status quo. But this is a worthy cause. Together we can change outcomes for forgotten towns and cities across our country.