Biden’s New Deal falls short for rural Texas

Malinda Lindsey has lost count of how many times parents have called or texted her late at night telling her their son or daughter has to sit in the school district building's parking lot to use its Wi-Fi network.

“We've had kids in the parking lot at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, submitting their speech or their paper that's due tomorrow,” Lindsey, the superintendent of Kennard Independent School District, told the editorial board. “We want to give equal opportunities to our students but if they don't have internet access, it's very difficult.”

Broadband internet access is so far out of reach for many of Lindsey's 250 students, their school-issued Chromebooks are practically useless when they get home. Mobile hot spots aren't an option when cell phone signals can't penetrate the dense forest canopy that blankets much of the region. Sure, on a clear night, you might be able to peer through those trees and catch a glimpse of the SpaceX Starlink satellites blinking from low-Earth orbit, but they aren't transmitting cheap, reliable coverage to your living room anytime soon.

It's hard to fathom how this can be the reality for so many Texans when many of us have the ability to conduct research, communicate, and even wire money halfway around the globe in seconds. In fact, there are still millions — yes, millions — of Texans who can't reliably use a web browser at home. The advent of the internet and the smartphone have drastically changed our way of life, mostly for the better, opening up an endless information highway that spans entire oceans and continents. Yet just 150 miles northeast of Houston, there are still far too many dead ends.

The good news is that Texas is set to reap the benefits of a $43 billion investment from the Biden administration which aims to provide affordable, high-speed internet service for every American by 2030, part of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law Congress passed in 2021. Our state will receive the largest allocation of those funds, a whopping $3.3 billion on top of the $1.5 billion allocated by the state Legislature this year. That's a windfall so large that even U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who voted against the federal bill, was moved to tweet about it.

The bad news is that maps produced by state and federal governments that are supposed to identify broadband coverage gaps across Texas and help guide priorities on where to spend the broadband funds are apparently full of errors.

The state maps, created by the Broadband Development Office within the comptroller's office using data provided by internet service providers, indicate that roughly 98 percent of locations in East Texas already have broadband access, which the agency now acknowledges is inaccurate. With a plethora of broadband funds at stake, this discrepancy isn't a technical matter; it is the difference between a rural Texas town such as Kennard waiting a few months versus a few years to get adequate internet service, if they get it at all.

It's imperative that Texas hit the ground running once those federal monies start flowing to states early next year. Yet in order to have shovelready projects, the state needs to pinpoint exactly where the broadband deserts in regions such as East Texas are. Prior to legislative changes made this past session, localities were only eligible for broadband funds if fewer than 80 percent of residents had adequate internet access, defined as speeds of at least 25 megabytes per second for downloads — which allows for basic activities such as high-definition streaming — and 3 megabits per second for uploads.

Survey data of more than 3,000 area residents compiled by the Deep East Texas Council of Governments — an 11-county regional entity which includes Houston County, where Kennard ISD is located — found 46 census blocks not accounted for on the state maps where most residents' speeds were well below that benchmark. The council has filed an official challenge to both the state map and a separate map developed by the Federal Communications Commission, which, the council claims, doesn't even include the homes of 27 percent of East Texans they interviewed.

The comptroller's office declined to make a determination on whether East Texas' petition requires them to reclassify their map. A spokesman for the comptroller, however, admitted to the editorial board that the original maps would have rendered only 2.5 percent of the state eligible for funding when “we know the digital divide represents a much greater proportion of the state.” By law, the Broadband Development Office has to update its map at least once per year, but the agency claims that it was hamstrung by a 2021 law establishing the rigid speed thresholds.

Comptroller Glenn Hegar last month touted a bill passed by the Legislature that will allow the Broadband Development Office to “greatly expand the areas eligible to receive broadband infrastructure grants.” That bill, among other changes, eliminates the previous definition of an area that was “ineligible” for funding and also establishes a new standard for latency — the amount of time it takes information to travel from an internet browser to a network server and back again. Lawmakers contend this change will more accurately determine where broadband deserts are than simply measuring upload and download speeds.

A spokeswoman for the FCC told us that challenges from stakeholders like the Deep East Texas Council would “play an important role in our ongoing effort to improve the accuracy and precision of our maps.”

We eagerly await the new state and federal maps, but the clock is ticking, with federal funds set to be distributed early next year.

Any further errors could have dire implications for areas with poor broadband access that go well beyond not being able to binge Game of Thrones on your tablet. It means remote health care facilities won't be able to schedule telemedicine appointments or allow patients to view their medical records online. It means farms that depend on broadband for “precision” machinery such as irrigation sensors, won't be able to conserve water and reduce fuel usage. It means small businesses won't be able to expand their customer bases and tap into larger vendor networks — the comptroller's own data show that broadband connections could increase annual sales to $6.7 billion over three years in rural Texas alone.

Most critically, it means children in rural Texas lack the most elemental freedom afforded by broadband technology: information. By depriving the next generation of digital literacy, we are suppressing their curiosity, their ability to think critically, and to engage with the world.

When Franklin Roosevelt established the Rural Electrification Administration in 1935 as part of the New Deal, it did more than just turn the lights on for hundreds of thousands of farm communities across the nation. It fundamentally changed their way of life. President Biden's ambition to bring every household in the nation online could be a 21st Century version of this landmark achievement.

Texas can't let errors stand in the way. Disseminating inaccurate data erodes public confidence that government can help solve these structural problems.

Broadband is infrastructure — as essential as any freeway, bridge or railroad. Let's not waste the opportunity staring us in the face. We look forward to the day when no Texan has to leave the comfort of their home just to go online.

Broadband coverage gaps will set back future generations.