How much impact will the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program—and the connectivity it brings—have on the poorest, most underserved pockets of the country? “Broadband deployment in this country has been market-driven, with private sector telephone and cable companies investing in areas that provide higher rates of return,” said Kathryn de Wit, Project Director for the Broadband Access Initiative with the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Profit and return are important to the long-term operation of networks, even for ISPs receiving government subsidies. Unfortunately, there have been too few policy requirements ensuring that networks built with those subsidies are reaching low-income households.” Such is the never-ending loop: Small, rural communities have less dense populations. They’re expensive to reach, so ISPs don’t build out services. That’s where the promise of BEAD comes in and may potentially change that trajectory. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with her colleagues a Report and Order proposing a second, more targeted Notice of Funding Opportunity to raise awareness and promote the Affordable Connectivity Program as part of the FCC’s broader consumer outreach efforts. The proposal is part of a reinvigorated campaign to enroll more eligible households and families in the nation’s largest broadband affordability program. The outreach grant program seeks to enlist trusted community messengers to develop innovative strategies to reach historically unserved and underserved communities. Selected partners will be provided with funding from the National Competitive Outreach Program and Tribal Competitive Outreach Program to increase participation among eligible, low-income households in need of an internet connection. 

The U.S. plans to spend at least $60 billion in the next decade to ensure every American household has high-speed internet. An old-fashioned obstacle stands in the way: utility poles. Getting everyone the same service city dwellers enjoy generally means stretching fiber-optic cable to homes, farms and ranches in rural areas. Many of these places already have utility poles carrying electric or telephone wires. The poles are owned by electric or phone companies that often aren’t getting public money to build out broadband, triggering skirmishes that some internet providers blame for slowing needed upgrades. Disputes involving utility poles have gummed up broadband projects in Kentucky, Michigan and South Carolina. One squabble in Socorro (NM) left two elementary schools without high-speed internet for several years. “Our students really suffered,” said Ron Hendrix, superintendent of the Socorro school district. It is “years of not having high-speed network out to two schools that really need it.” The disputes are complicating a rural broadband rollout that Washington is pursuing with new vigor, part of the federal government’s expanding role in internet service as it seeks to upgrade U.S. infrastructure. The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the need for broadband as many Americans left cities for rural areas.

Astonishingly, the U.S. Senate has allowed the auction authority of the Federal Communications Commission to lapse for the first time since it was granted to the FCC in 1994. The U.S. Communications and Technology Subcommittee is holding more hearings related to the issue. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member, said, “Yesterday, for the first time since the agency gained this authority 30 years ago, Congress failed to extend it when the Senate refused to act. The House did its work – we unanimously passed a bipartisan bill introduced by me and Chair [Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)] last month to extend the spectrum auction authority to May 19th. Our legislation would have prevented this lapse in authority.” Congress had already been kicking the can on the FCC’s auction authority for several months. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel stated, “To date, the FCC has held 100 auctions and has raised more than $233 billion in revenues and unlocked extraordinary benefits for the American people. It is my hope that the FCC’s auction authority is restored quickly.”