Why Haven't We Reinvested Spectrum Proceeds In Broadband?

[Commentary] Why haven't we been reinvesting the proceeds from our previous spectrum auctions into building up our nation's broadband infrastructure?

The Federal Communications Commission has raised about $50 billion over the last decade selling off our country's spectrum assets. So where does that money go? Back into the federal treasury, never to be heard from again.

But why are we doing that? The most common refrain in debates around how to overcome our country's broadband limitations is the lack of federal dollars to make a real difference. We've been told that we've got the $7 billion a year in Universal Service Fund to reform and rededicate to broadband, and the one-time $7 billion of the stimulus and that's about it. But everyone knows reforming USF is going to be a mess that'll likely take years to resolve before those funds are being invested in broadband. The sad reality is that we've spent $70 billion over the last decade largely subsidizing non-broadband communications, which is really pretty silly given that this represented the first ten years of the 21st century. And at the same time, everyone acknowledges that the broadband stimulus is but a drop in the bucket relative to what our country's needs are.

Imagine if instead of just dumping that money back into the treasury we'd instead had an ongoing comprehensive plan to build up an open fiber network connecting every school in the country. We probably could have that built by now for $50 billion. That'd mean that today all students would have access to robust Internet in the classroom, instead of the reality we're in where a huge percentage of schools are stuck paying too much for not enough bandwidth.