Universal Broadband

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $42.45 billion in funding for broadband networks, which, if passed, would reflect the government’s most significant commitment to date to addressing America’s broadband availability gap. While I applaud making states the locus of fund distribution, I question the choice of National Telecommunications and Information Administration rather than the Federal Communications Commission as the locus of oversight.

If passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act leads to even a significant portion of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda through budget reconciliation, it will herald a new age of government investment and intervention in the economy, and a reversal of decades of pullbacks in public spending. On the surface, a $65 billion investment in broadband, with an emphasis on getting low-income and rural households connected and closing the digital divide, is an unalloyed positive.

The Senate gave overwhelming bipartisan approval to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill to rebuild the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges and fund new climate resilience and broadband initiatives, delivering a key component of President Biden’s agenda. The legislation would be the largest infusion of federal investment into infrastructure projects in more than a decade, touching nearly every facet of the American economy and fortifying the nation’s response to the warming of the planet. The bill allocates $65 billion for broadband infrastructure in these areas:

In July, Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and John Thune (R-SD) sent a letter to Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to request a status update on the Federal Communications Commission's long-form application review process for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. On July 29, Chairwoman Rosenworcel replied.

As the Senate chips away at final passage of the $550 billion infrastructure package, the compromise’s top detractors are fretting about where negotiators placed the agreed-upon $42.5 billion in broadband deployment grants for states.

Millions of Americans struggle to pay for fast internet service, or find that it’s not available where they live, a new Consumer Reports survey shows. The nationally representative survey of 2,565 adults (PDF), conducted in June of this year, adds urgency to debates over broadband infrastructure and competition, according to consumer advocates.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved several fiscal year 2022 appropriations bills with strong bipartisan support. The Fiscal Year 2022 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill was reported out of Committee on a vote of 25 to 5. If the bill becomes law, the USDA's ReConnect broadband program would receive $700 million.  The program will expand access to high-speed broadband to remote unserved and underserved rural areas.  

The Senate infrastructure bill includes a package of digital initiatives that together amount to the largest one-time investment in broadband in US history, totaling $65 billion.