This paper investigates whether the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), implemented as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had a positive impact on farm productivity, defined as farm sales per farm employment, in the counties that received any BIP funding. The effect of BIP on the growth of farm sales was examined for the 2008–2010, 2008–2011, 2008–2012 and 2008–2013 periods. The selection bias (the probability that a county received BIP funding) was accounted for using the inverse probability weighting regression method (IPW). The findings suggest that BIP funding had a significant but short-term impact on per employment farm sales.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development is using $400 million worth of coronavirus recovery funds to fund new broadband infrastructure projects in remote areas. 218 internet service providers applied for the grant money, which is more than double what it’s been in previous years. The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development plans to announce the grant winners during summer 2022.

Everyone in Pennsylvania has access to broadband—at least, according to the definition set by state lawmakers in the early 2000s. But ask residents of rural areas about their internet speeds, and you’ll likely hear about slow connections and outdated technology. In 1993, the state legislature approved a sweeping measure they hoped would guarantee universal access to high-speed internet in Pennsylvania. The law cut a deal with the existing landline phone companies, who agreed to make broadband available across the entire state — even in unprofitable rural areas — in exchange for less regulation and the chance to earn higher profits. Ten years later, with the law due to expire, legislators debated whether to renew it. That involved setting themselves an impossible task: trying to predict the internet speeds of the future. The 1993 law defined broadband as a minimum download speed of 1.544 megabits per second — blazing fast at the time. By the early 2000s, though, some industry experts warned lawmakers that the original standard would soon be obsolete. By 2015, the state’s final deadline for companies to upgrade their networks, the federal standard for download speeds was 16 times faster than Pennsylvania’s. 

Ashland, Oregon, created the Ashland Fiber Network in the late 1990s, after discovering the city’s only internet provider wouldn’t upgrade its infrastructure to meet rising demands. Ashland decided to offer its own internet service. Now all this equipment is starting to become outdated. While AFN was a pioneer for city-owned internet at its inception, the service has since fallen behind other municipal fiber networks. For the current system to work, a long chain of networking devices need to be strung up throughout the city to translate the signal between fiber-optics and cable. AFN is now following in the footsteps of others and learning how the company can make the system easier to upgrade in the future. But with major upgrades come major costs. It could take up to $10 million to replace all those cable boxes around the city with fiber-optics. The Ashland city council is considering entering into a public-private partnership, which would mean the city giving away some of its stake in the network to a private company and allowing them to run the day-to-day operations of the service.