Biden broadband plan tied to FCC action
$100B proposal bets on success of initiatives
WASHINGTON — For the 30 million Americans without reliable internet access, President Joe Biden’s $100 billion proposal to expand rural broadband and make it more affordable — a major plank of his infrastructure plan unveiled near Pittsburgh last month — promises to be a bipartisan panacea for a long-standing source of inequality.
But the success of Mr. Biden’s plan to quickly reach every home or business would hinge largely on the government’s ability to dole out the funding accurately and efficiently — a monumental task federal officials are beginning in earnest this year.
Officials at the Federal Communications Commission face challenges with data gaps in the country’s broadband coverage maps that underpin decisions on what places should receive money, which already has begun flowing.
In December, the FCC auctioned off $9.2 billion to companies across the country to expand highspeed internet to 5.2 million homes and businesses, the first
phase of the commission’s $20 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
Across 17 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, the FCC awarded nearly $115 million to eight companies to expand internet access to nearly 51,000 homes and businesses. The FCC is funding the projects over 10 years and demanding companies connect their assigned locations in six years or less.
The government funding aims to help companies undertake expensive projects for a sparsely populated customer base.
“The economics in some of these areas are extremely poor when it comes to deploying fiber because it’s so labor-intensive,” said Thomas Whitehead, vice
president of federal govern- ment affairs for Windstream Communications, “so we absolutely need government support in order to be able to accomplish that goal.”
The Arkansas- based telecommunications provider serves mostly rural areas across 17 states, including rugged areas of Western Pennsylvania. Windstream received more than $57 million from the FCC to connect 17,927 homes and businesses in southwestern Pennsylvania — about $3,200 per connection, according to FCC data.
In Greene County alone, Windstream received $14 million to connect 2,879 homes and businesses — a cost of nearly $5,000 per connection, one of the highest rates of any location in the region.
Universal broadband service has long been a goal of the federal government, which has offered an array of resources. At least 14 federal agencies offer grants, loans or other forms of aid across 57 individual broadband programs, according to a list published last year by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
The FCC, established by the Communications Act of 1934, was mandated with carrying out universal service programs, which in the 20th century ensured that telephone service reached rural areas.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ordered the FCC to boost access to high-speed internet and focus on affordability issues. Four new universal service programs were created to target rural areas, low-income families, schools and tribal areas for internet and cellular phone service. The American Rescue Plan, signed into law last month, authorized billions more for some of those aid programs.
Mr. Biden’s American Jobs Plan envisioned dramatically expanding the scale of those efforts. It was the federal government’s responsibility, the White House plan stated, to embark on a public works project akin to the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which extended the power grid to hard-to-reach and impoverished regions.
“Broadband internet is the new electricity,” the White House overview stated. “It is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care, and to stay connected.”
The proposal reflects the efforts in Congress led by Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, who chairs a House subcommittee that oversees communications and technology issues. Last summer, Mr. Doyle co-sponsored a bill to authorize $100 billion for broadband, a bill that was included in an infrastructure plan passed by House Democrats in July. It died in the Senate, then controlled by Republicans.
This time around, he said, he believes the plan can pass.
“This is going to be a bill that’s marked up in my subcommittee and eventually the full committee, and it’s going to be part of this plan,” Mr. Doyle said in an interview.
“The thing that’s exciting,” Mr. Doyle said, is the plan calls for “bringing 21stcentury broadband — to not settle for just what’s available but to get fiber into these under-served areas, so that as we transition to 5G and as new things come up, the infrastructure exists in the country for that.”
GOP opposition
But Republicans so far have opposed Mr. Biden’s infrastructure plan, which proposes to raise the corporate tax rate to pay for it.
“President Biden’s socalled infrastructure plan fails to bridge the digital divide,” stated Rep. John Joyce, RBlair, whose district is largely rural and is slated for broadband projects aided by tens of millions of FCC funding released in December.
“By implementing new regulationson broadband deployment, the president’s infrastructure plan would discourage innovation and hinder efforts to expand access to high speed internet in rural communities,” Mr. Joyce said in a statement.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, RPeters,representing Washington, Greene and Westmoreland counties, said in a statement that he supports investment in broadband as part of a “targeted” infrastructure plan, but called Mr. Biden’s plan “preposterous.”
Rep. Glenn Thompson, RCentre, stated that broadband “has been a bipartisan priority for years, and it’s paramount that we make substantial investments in rural connectivity.” But Mr. Biden tax hike and regulations concern him.
Free-market advocates argue that government funding and ownership of broadband put taxpayers on the hook for universal service projects that have a checkered history of success.
“Good intentions aside, it often doesn’t produce good outcomes,” said Jessica
Melugin, a researcher with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington libertarian think tank promoting free markets.
Mr. Biden’s plan stated that it would prioritize funding broadband networks owned or operated by municipalities or nonprofits, a move that would hamper the private sector’s ability to roll out new technologies to reach communities, Ms. Melugin said.
The Biden plan “feels like a quick fix to some people, but the evidence says something different,” she said. “You’re talking about decades of delay at the FCC for rolling out cellphone technology and things like that.”
The FCC has moved ahead with major funding initiatives.
In August 2019, the fivemember commission, then controlled by appointees of then- President Donald Trump, voted unanimously to dole out more than $20 billion of Universal Service Fund subsidies over the next 10 years as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
In tandem with new funding, the FCC has tried to correct the inaccurate coverage maps by collecting better information from broadband providers.
The FCC historically has asked providers to report coverage information that fits into census-derived blocks — areas that can range from a city block to a sweeping area of rural farmland. By that system, an entire census block could be classified as served by broadband even if only one household has access.
Fixing FCC maps
Mr. Doyle’s panel drew up legislation in 2019 that required the FCC to fix the maps. The measures required the FCC to collect and disseminate more granular broadband data, allow the commission to use crowdsourced feedback on coverage areas, and establish a new office to serve as a central command center for mapping efforts.
They also made it illegal for providers to knowingly file false broadband information and create a system by which private and public entities could challenge data submitted to the commission.
The measures passed Congress, and Mr. Trump signed it into law in March 2020.
A new FCC broadband mapping task force was created to overhaul the maps and create multiple systems to accommodate crowdsourcing and complaints, a senior FCC official said in an interview last week. The task force received funding to start its mission only last December, the official said.