In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the General Assembly is considering Gov. Northam’s request to increase funding to bring better broadband to all Virginians. Such support is important, as students stay home and learn, adults stay home and work, and seniors stay home even as they visit their doctor. Funding for broadband would be an important step — and a wake-up call to the federal government. Virginia’s broadband challenges are multifaceted. In rural areas, nearly a third of households have no access to broadband. More than 600,000 Virginians have only one wired service provider, leaving them with no option to switch if they are dissatisfied with their service. In urban communities where broadband is available, it may not be affordable. The census tracts with the lowest broadband adoption rates in the Commonwealth are not in rural Virginia, but in Richmond. The new funding would support a stronger Virginia Telecommunication Initiative program. Just this year, that grant program was improved by prioritizing networks that are willing to serve everyone in a location, including less densely-populated neighborhoods. And more parts of Virginia are now eligible for grants. But the federal government, particularly the Federal Communications Commission, seems to want to put the brakes on state efforts. Later this year, the FCC will award more than $16 billion to deploy broadband in unserved rural areas through its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. But the FCC inexplicably — and wrongly — curbed the ability of applicants to use both federal and state funds to maximum effect to build the best networks. As Commissioner Geoffrey Starks explained, the FCC’s stance serves to “discourage badly needed state-federal partnerships [and] risk unequal application of the rules between states.”

[Jonathan Sallet Sallet is a Senior Fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. Previously, Sallet served as General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission and Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Litigation, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice.

MetroNet announced the completion of its citywide, 100% fiber-optic network in Lexington (KY), earning Lexington, with a population of 325,000, the title of largest Gigabit City in the US. For the last 2.5 years, MetroNet has been hard at work laying 4.4 million feet of fiber in neighborhoods across the city. Former Mayor Jim Gray set a visionary goal to make Lexington a Gigabit City in 2017, and MetroNet answered that call with a proposal to invest up to $100M. Gigabit Cities are defined as having fiber-optic cables throughout a city, making gigabit internet access available to all and helping to close the digital divide. Chattanooga (TN) was the first to achieve this status, followed by Lafayette (LA) and other smaller cities. Lexington's population is twice that of Chattanooga.

There’s a huge opportunity for fixed wireless access (FWA) growth around the world, and that opportunity has been especially highlighted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Tina Lu said only 45% of households worldwide had broadband at the end of 2019. But if Chinese households are removed from the equation, only 28% of global households are connected to broadband. “This is the primary drive to the growth of FWA,” said Lu. “Also Covid-19 is making broadband a priority. It’s not just a luxury. It’s a need.” Counterpoint Research predicts 60 million users for both 4G and 5G FWA by the end of 2020, with 10 million of those being 5G FWA users. “The U.S. is driving the growth of FWA with deployment of mmWave in metro areas and CBRS in the rural areas,” said Lu. Counterpoint predicts the number of FWA users to grow from 60 million to 200 million by 2025. However, FWA does face challenges.

With the start of the school year just around the corner, thousands of Minnesota students still don’t have access to reliable high-speed internet — meaning that many will begin another year of at least part-time distance learning with spotty service or no internet connection at all.  Low-income students, rural students and students of color are disproportionately likely to lack reliable internet access, raising concerns that the digital divide will worsen Minnesota’s educational disparities, which are already some of the worst in the nation. Roughly 25,000 Minnesota students didn’t have computers or internet at home by late spring, about 3% of the state’s K-12 students, the Minnesota Department of Education estimated. And so far in summer 2020, there’s been little progress getting families online. The Minnesota Legislature considered but didn’t approve additional funds for state programs aimed at building out broadband infrastructure in rural areas, where about 17% of families don’t have broadband access.

For now, families without broadband access are still waiting for solutions.