Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Blackouts

Years of Republican and Democratic administrations have tried to fix the nation’s broadband woes, through flawed attempts. Bad mapping, weak standards, and flimsy oversight have left nearly 3 million rural Americans in dead zones, with eroded health care services and where telehealth doesn’t reach. Blair Levin, a former executive director of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan, called one rural program rollout during the first Trump administration “a disaster.” It was launched before it was ready, he said, using unreliable federal maps and a reverse-auction process to select internet carriers. Locations went to the lowest bidder, but the agency failed to ensure winners had the knowledge and resources to build networks, said Levin. The fund initially announced awards of $9.2 billion to build infrastructure in 49 states. By 2025, $3.3 billion of those awards were in default and, as a result, the program won’t connect 1.9 million homes and businesses, according to a recent study. A $42 billion Biden-era initiative still may not help households shortchanged by earlier federal broadband grants. The new wave of funding, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, or BEAD, has an anti-waste provision and won’t provide service in places where previous grants were awarded, even if companies haven’t delivered on their commitments.