If you’re a person living in the United States without quality broadband, you should be very disappointed in the way your elected officials have failed to meet the following challenge of closing the digital divide recently: 

1. Strike One (March 7): The 15-month failure to seat a full 5-member Federal Communications Commission. After three hearings and registering the support of 400 organizations across the political spectrum and 400,000 citizens, the Biden administration and US Senate gave the broadband industry exactly what it wanted – two years (or more) of a deadlocked FCC. This nomination process was a shameful display of the power of misinformation and homophobia at work in the nation.
2.  Strike Two (March 8): The failure to renew the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum. For the past 30 years, the US has renewed the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum without fail – until now. Congress just allowed this authority to expire. Fortunately, there are no auctions underway and none on the immediate horizon, so this lapse will not cause permanent damage to the FCC’s ability to conduct auctions so long as it is short-lived. 
3. Strike Three (March 9): The failure to provide additional funds to the Affordable Connectivity Fund (ACP). Despite lavishing praise on the ACP as a critical initiative to make broadband affordable for low-income families, the Biden administration’s budget proposal makes no request for additional funding. Instead, the budget relies on an optimistic timeline for existing funding to last. While estimates suggest that the program could run out of funds next year, the White House seems comfortable banking on smaller demand on these funds, leaving out the estimated 24 million eligible American households who have not yet signed up. 

To finish the baseball analogy, the US struck out, but the game isn’t over. The public will be watching to see if the Administration takes steps to achieve the broadband agenda it has touted. This starts with getting a well-qualified fifth commissioner confirmed to the FCC immediately, but also includes strong anti-discrimination rules called for by law and restoring the FCC’s Title II authority over broadband so the agency can protect more consumers over this essential network. 

[Chris Lewis is the President and CEO of Public Knowledge]

In support of the intrinsic role that libraries play in promoting informed, healthy, vibrant communities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded $180 million in annual grants to each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Territories and Freely Associated States. These grants represent the largest source of federal funding support for library services. With this investment, the agency’s Grants to States program leverages state and local funding to support impactful library services across the nation. The IMLS Fiscal Year 2023 allotment table for 59 State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAAs) includes a base amount to each of the SLAAs plus a supplemental amount based on population. This year’s base amount rose to $1 million for states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and to $100,000 for other Territories and Freely Associated States, an increase that delivers on the statutory language of the agency’s 2018 reauthorization. Based on IMLS analysis of states’ newly submitted five-year plans, the agency anticipates significant investments in training for the library workforce (95% of states), reading (88% of states), library services for the blind and print disabled (73% of states), and broadband (71% of states) among other areas. 

Consolidated Communications now offers 2 Gbps symmetrical service to more than 3,000 homes and small businesses in parts of rural Maine. The deployment was funded, in part, through money awarded to the company and to the Maine Connectivity Authority. The funding came through the Broadband Infrastructure Program administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). That program targeted public/private partnerships such as the one between Maine Connectivity Authority and Consolidated. Consolidated and Maine Connectivity won a $18.3 million grant in the program, which targeted unserved rural areas. The areas where Consolidated announced service include Rangeley, Dallas Plantation, Rangeley Plantation, and Sandy River Plantation. Other areas where the partners won funding include Blue Hill Peninsula and the town of Farmington. The funding came through the Maine Connectivity Authority’s Connect the Ready program.

Technological innovation often leads to organizational innovation, and organizational innovation often leads to organizational opposition. As new forms of business organizations emerge and become dominant, interest groups and others often resist the change, decrying the new models as fundamentally negative. The reality of economic history is these new business models have been enormously positive. The world would be a vastly poorer place without the rise of the industrial organization, then the multidivisional corporation and now the Internet-based platform. As such, policymakers should be extremely cautious in their efforts to limit this next potential transition. Just as there was opposition to the corporate economy in the early 1900s, there is opposition to the platform economy today. But limiting “platformization” would have considerable long-lasting economic costs for the nation and consumers.