Ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Roger Wicker (R-MS) sent letters to the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Treasury requesting the agencies to report on the disbursement of funds received for broadband deployment, adoption, or other connectivity initiatives. The funding initiatives in question include the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020,  Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. “The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of broadband connectivity,” said Wicker. “To address this issue, Congress has spent billions of dollars to fund multiple programs across the federal government that support the expansion of broadband connectivity and services to unserved and underserved locations. It is critical that both Congress and the agencies ensure that these funds are distributed in a way that avoids overbuilding, duplication of funding, and wasteful spending.”

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Notice of Funding (NOFO) for their new Broadband Infrastructure Progam provides a complicated definition for eligible service areas. Here is our analysis of the NOFO protocols on data usage and mapping for program proposals:

• NTIA consults the National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) when considering proposals, adding state-provided data and speed test data to the old 477 maps.
• NBAM maps are not public, although you can access them if your state is an NBAM participant. To see if your state is participating in NBAM, click here.
• The proposed service areas can be part of census blocks and do not have to be contiguous. Middle-mile infrastructure is eligible for funding, so the boundaries for the proposed funding service areas drawn by you and your partner(s) can consist of clusters if they’re connected by middle-mile.
• Including some served locations in your proposal should not be a problem. NTIA’s criteria for an unserved area is that at least one address in a census block is unserved, but a higher number of unserved addresses, as well as a high unserved-to-served ratio, will positively impact the project’s score.
• Fixed wireless coverage counts for BIP could potentially eliminate a census block from funding since physical inspection is difficult and field testing is unreliable. If you have independent speed test or survey data to document no service, below-average broadband speeds, and/or unreliable service, your project will be less vulnerable to exaggerated fixed wireless provider claims.
• Prior federal or state broadband funding in a census block does not necessarily preclude an area from consideration but must be disclosed in the grant application. A census block that has been previously funded with state or federal funds such as the Connect America Fund II would not—if there are still unserved households—preclude an applicant from including such an area, but it could weaken the overall score of the project and could potentially exclude it.

President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan prioritizes “building ‘future proof’ broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage.” Many considered this an imperative to spend the funds on fiber-to-the-home connections. Yet is fiber—and more precisely, fiber-optic "last mile" connections into residences—really future proof? As the amount of devices and data generated have multiplied, fixed connections to them have diminished. The future of connectivity in the last mile is increasingly wireless, and for the most part, mobile. Why be tied to a wire when not necessary, even if it is arguably even more efficient? Perhaps policymakers should exhibit some humility and acknowledge that the rhetoric about future proof fiber does not reflect the industry’s realities and current evolution.

[Bronwyn Howell is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.]

With broadband affordability especially high on the agenda following the pandemic, it could seem that Europe has all the answers. Yet Europe has its own struggles with digital divide, and it hasn't cracked the affordability problem across the board. Europe has been able to spur more affordable prices thanks to a regulated market environment that promotes competition; open access infrastructure--which in the case of broadband means a physical network that different service providers can all make use of--has allowed multiple companies to compete for customers at a service level, forcing them to offer more competitive prices. Putting too much focus on prices, however, also has the potential to obscure the complicated reality of affordability. A direct dollars-for-dollars comparison with monthly European and US costs for broadband packages doesn't take into account the disparity in average income between the different countries involved. Ultimately there's a tapestry of problems including speed, rural access, income disparity and regulations that are inextricably linked with price that keep people disconnected worldwide.

The House Judiciary Committee approved far-reaching legislation to curb the market dominance of tech giants, including Google and Facebook, but much of the effort faced intensive lobbying by affected firms that slowed the committee’s work and foreshadowed a pitched battle in the Senate. The centerpiece of the six-bill package, a measure to bar big tech companies from favoring their own products in a range of circumstances on their platforms, was approved by a vote of 24 to 20. Known as the American Choice and Innovation Online Act, the legislation would prohibit big platforms from engaging in conduct that advantages their own products or services, or disadvantages other business users, or discriminates among similarly situated business users. Another approved measure requires that the largest internet platforms make it easier for users to transport their data to other platforms and even communicate with users on other platforms. The bill—known as the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching, or Access, Act—would give the Federal Trade Commission extensive new powers to set individualized standards for the tech giants. It passed, 25-19. Two other less-controversial bills also were adopted, one raising federal fees on corporate merger reviews and another aiding state attorneys general in procedural battles in antitrust court cases. The bills must still pass the full House, where the timetable for bringing them to the floor for final votes remains unclear.