Latest news with #BroadbandEquityAccessandDeployment
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Red Tape Isn't the Only Reason America Can't Build
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. The buzziest idea in Democratic politics right now is the 'abundance agenda,' which criticizes liberals for saddling government programs with bureaucratic red tape that delays those programs to the point of never delivering. Few examples seem to illustrate the point better than rural broadband. As part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress allocated $42.5 billion in subsidies to a new Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Its required 14 procedural steps to actually get this funding to internet service providers, or ISPs—companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Charter, and Frontier—along with significant labor, environmental, and domestic-production requirements, seem to fit the pattern of a well-intentioned program that has been stuffed with too many bells and whistles. (One of us, Asad Ramzanali, worked on broadband issues including BEAD in both the House of Representatives and the White House.) Thus, three and a half years after the law passed, shovels have still not broken ground on any project funded by this program, as the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein recently explained to an incredulous Jon Stewart, who lamented the 'incredibly frustrating, overcomplicated Rube Goldberg machine that keeps people from getting broadband.' Figuring out how to provide high-speed internet to all Americans has been an important public-policy goal for decades. As the coronavirus pandemic made painfully clear, broadband is crucial to full participation in society. And multiple empirical studies have shown that increased broadband access is correlated with stronger economic growth. Yet more than 7 million homes and businesses still do not have access. But the current political debate misunderstands the nature of the problem at almost every level. When it comes to broadband, procedural simplicity on its own hasn't worked in the past and won't work in the future. The deeper issue is that the United States government has abandoned the full range of policy tools that would actually get the job done. Any effort to achieve 'abundance' must start by recognizing that red tape isn't the only reason America can't seem to build anymore. The BEAD program does seem overcomplicated. It requires the Federal Communications Commission to complete a national map of where broadband is currently missing, the Commerce Department to distribute funding to states, state-level broadband offices to allocate subgrants to internet service providers, and the ISPs to deploy cables to connect homes to the internet. The numerous intermediate steps—initial planning grants, five-year action plans, map challenges, final plans, and more—sound like the kind of red tape that blocks progress and generates distrust in government. The solution seems glaringly obvious: simplify the steps. Cut out all the middlemen and empower the FCC to provide money directly to ISPs as efficiently and quickly as possible. Any reasonable person would reach that conclusion. The first Trump administration had the same thought. In 2020, the FCC rolled out a multibillion-dollar program called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). To allocate the money, the FCC quickly identified areas that had insufficient service. It then held a reverse auction of small geographic plots, awarding the subsidy to whichever ISP submitted the lowest bid for each plot. There was no notice of funding opportunity. No planning grants. No five-year action plans. No subgranting process. No state broadband offices. And no labor, environmental, small-business, or diversity requirements. ISPs quickly bid a cumulative $9.2 billion to serve high-speed broadband to 5.2 million homes and businesses. [Jerusalem Demsas: Not everyone should have a say] In many ways, RDOF was a neoliberal economist's dream—an efficient allocation of scarce public resources distributed through a competitive process. But removing bureaucratic steps turned out not to result in a better outcome. Without accurate mapping data to understand where need existed, RDOF allowed ISPs to bid on serving such locations as an empty patch of grass, industrial-park storage tanks, and a luxury resort that already had broadband. Without proper due diligence, other providers committed to projects that were not technically or financially feasible. As a result, the RDOF program still hasn't delivered much broadband to Americans. More than one-third of the bids have already been deemed in default, according to the FCC. In other words, nearly 2 million of the 5.2 million promised locations will never get service under the program, and that number is likely to keep growing. Worse, many of these locations may not get service from BEAD, either, because RDOF was assumed to cover them. Within that context, Congress's approach to the BEAD program—making sure that broadband maps are accurate; that state governments, who know their residents and needs best, develop thorough plans that will ensure long-lasting service; and that communities have opportunities to provide input—is less baffling. With the benefit of hindsight, the process should have been simpler. But Congress was clearly responding to the failures of RDOF, which meant more checks in the system. Why is internet service a problem that the government needs to solve, anyway? The answer is that private-sector companies seek to maximize profits, but in many rural areas, building networks is unprofitable. There might not be enough customers to offset the onetime costs of construction or even the ongoing costs of repairs, customer service, and overhead. To date, the federal government's approach to promoting service in unprofitable areas has almost exclusively been to subsidize private companies. The first federal broadband subsidies go back to at least 1995. Since then, the U.S. has put more than $100 billion into broadband expansion, primarily into rural areas, across more than 100 federal programs. Like RDOF, many of these programs have severely underperformed. This is what happens when government loses the ability, or the will, to undertake more direct interventions in the market and to challenge, not merely subsidize, corporations. A century ago, America faced a problem almost identical to the broadband shortage: rural electrification. Well into the 20th century, life in much of rural America was little changed from the 19th. Without electric appliances—refrigerators, washing machines, even lamps—running a farm was backbreaking, round-the-clock work. By 1935, private providers had electrified more than 80 percent of nonfarm households but only 11 percent of farm households. That year, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress created the Rural Electrification Administration to address this problem. At first, REA Administrator Morris Cooke hoped to partner with private electricity companies, not unlike our current subsidy-heavy approach for broadband. However, those companies argued that rural electrification would not be financially self-sustaining. Even with government support, they proposed building out to only 351,000 new customers, which would leave millions unconnected. The New Dealers recognized that subsidies to private firms could only go so far. So they turned to three other strategies. First, when the private sector was unable to serve all Americans, the REA organized communities across the country to develop their own, cooperatively owned electricity-distribution networks, funded by the federal government. The REA encouraged state laws to charter these cooperatives, provided engineering support to build infrastructure, and assisted cooperatives in negotiating for sources of electrical power. Second, the New Deal created public options. Federal government–owned providers, most famously the Tennessee Valley Authority, were established to generate electricity at affordable rates. These public options functioned as an important 'yardstick,' in Roosevelt's words, to evaluate the performance of the private sector. If the private sector refused to offer electricity at affordable rates, the TVA could step in to sell electricity directly to cooperatives instead. Third, private-sector electricity providers were classified as public utilities subject to strict regulation. The government couldn't build public plants to generate power across the entire country or successfully organize every community. So it required electric companies to expand services to cover everyone in their existing and adjacent service areas, even households that were unprofitable to serve. These utilities were required to set prices that allowed them to turn reasonable but not excessive profits. [George Packer: How Virginia took on Dominion Energy] The REA was a success. By 1940, a quarter of farm households were electrified, and by 1953, that figure had risen to 90 percent. That same year, retail rural electricity rates approximated rates found in urban areas. A similar approach could be applied to rural broadband today. Local governments could offer public broadband—as happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has one of the fastest broadband networks in the world, run by the municipally owned electric company, a public option that competes with Xfinity and AT&T. Cooperatives could purchase internet service in the same way as they buy electricity. And public-utility regulations could require broadband providers to cover areas adjacent to their service areas at a reasonable price in exchange for rate regulation. So why has the federal government focused on subsidizing for-profit ISPs rather than using the mixed approach that worked during the New Deal era? Consider what happened in Chattanooga. After its municipal model proved successful, ISPs saw a threat and mobilized. They successfully lobbied lawmakers to pass laws restricting public options in broadband. Twenty-five states, including Tennessee, had such laws on the books in 2019, according to a report by BroadbandNow. In Congress, Democrats have repeatedly proposed federal legislation to preempt such state laws, but those proposals have languished. And although some of the state limits on public options have been repealed, 16 states still restrict municipal broadband. Lobbying from ISPs might likewise explain why the FCC has never used its existing legal authority to require ISPs to expand service at mandated affordable prices. (A conservative appeals court foreclosed that option for the FCC only recently.) The lesson of rural broadband is that some government failures are due not to procedural excess, but to giving up on regulatory tools that might antagonize Big Business. Unfortunately, learning this lesson again may now cost us $42.5 billion. Last week, the Department of Commerce rolled back many procedural hoops of the BEAD program—ostensibly with the same goals as RDOF. It's tempting to think that America can learn how to build again without having to wage difficult battles against powerful corporate interests, simply by eliminating bureaucratic red tape. But if efficient building were really so easy, we'd already be doing it. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
10-06-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
Red Tape Isn't the Only Reason America Can't Build
The buzziest idea in Democratic politics right now is the 'abundance agenda,' which criticizes liberals for saddling government programs with bureaucratic red tape that delays those programs to the point of never delivering. Few examples seem to illustrate the point better than rural broadband. As part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress allocated $42.5 billion in subsidies to a new Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Its required 14 procedural steps to actually get this funding to internet service providers, or ISPs—companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Charter, and Frontier—along with significant labor, environmental, and domestic-production requirements, seem to fit the pattern of a well-intentioned program that has been stuffed with too many bells and whistles. (One of us, Asad Ramzanali, worked on broadband issues including BEAD in both the House of Representatives and the White House.) Thus, three and a half years after the law passed, shovels have still not broken ground on any project funded by this program, as the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein recently explained to an incredulous Jon Stewart, who lamented the 'incredibly frustrating, overcomplicated Rube Goldberg machine that keeps people from getting broadband.' Figuring out how to provide high-speed internet to all Americans has been an important public-policy goal for decades. As the coronavirus pandemic made painfully clear, broadband is crucial to full participation in society. And multiple empirical studies have shown that increased broadband access is correlated with stronger economic growth. Yet more than 7 million homes and businesses still do not have access. But the current political debate misunderstands the nature of the problem at almost every level. When it comes to broadband, procedural simplicity on its own hasn't worked in the past and won't work in the future. The deeper issue is that the United States government has abandoned the full range of policy tools that would actually get the job done. Any effort to achieve 'abundance' must start by recognizing that red tape isn't the only reason America can't seem to build anymore. The BEAD program does seem overcomplicated. It requires the Federal Communications Commission to complete a national map of where broadband is currently missing, the Commerce Department to distribute funding to states, state-level broadband offices to allocate subgrants to internet service providers, and the ISPs to deploy cables to connect homes to the internet. The numerous intermediate steps—initial planning grants, five-year action plans, map challenges, final plans, and more—sound like the kind of red tape that blocks progress and generates distrust in government. The solution seems glaringly obvious: simplify the steps. Cut out all the middlemen and empower the FCC to provide money directly to ISPs as efficiently and quickly as possible. Any reasonable person would reach that conclusion. The first Trump administration had the same thought. In 2020, the FCC rolled out a multibillion-dollar program called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). To allocate the money, the FCC quickly identified areas that had insufficient service. It then held a reverse auction of small geographic plots, awarding the subsidy to whichever ISP submitted the lowest bid for each plot. There was no notice of funding opportunity. No planning grants. No five-year action plans. No subgranting process. No state broadband offices. And no labor, environmental, small-business, or diversity requirements. ISPs quickly bid a cumulative $9.2 billion to serve high-speed broadband to 5.2 million homes and businesses. Jerusalem Demsas: Not everyone should have a say In many ways, RDOF was a neoliberal economist's dream—an efficient allocation of scarce public resources distributed through a competitive process. But removing bureaucratic steps turned out not to result in a better outcome. Without accurate mapping data to understand where need existed, RDOF allowed ISPs to bid on serving such locations as an empty patch of grass, industrial-park storage tanks, and a luxury resort that already had broadband. Without proper due diligence, other providers committed to projects that were not technically or financially feasible. As a result, the RDOF program still hasn't delivered much broadband to Americans. More than one-third of the bids have already been deemed in default, according to the FCC. In other words, nearly 2 million of the 5.2 million promised locations will never get service under the program, and that number is likely to keep growing. Worse, many of these locations may not get service from BEAD, either, because RDOF was assumed to cover them. Within that context, Congress's approach to the BEAD program—making sure that broadband maps are accurate; that state governments, who know their residents and needs best, develop thorough plans that will ensure long-lasting service; and that communities have opportunities to provide input—is less baffling. With the benefit of hindsight, the process should have been simpler. But Congress was clearly responding to the failures of RDOF, which meant more checks in the system. Why is internet service a problem that the government needs to solve, anyway? The answer is that private-sector companies seek to maximize profits, but in many rural areas, building networks is unprofitable. There might not be enough customers to offset the onetime costs of construction or even the ongoing costs of repairs, customer service, and overhead. To date, the federal government's approach to promote service in unprofitable areas has almost exclusively been to subsidize private companies. The first federal broadband subsidies go back to at least 1995. Since then, the U.S. has put more than $100 billion into broadband expansion, primarily into rural areas, across more than 100 federal programs. Like RDOF, many of these programs have severely underperformed. This is what happens when government loses the ability, or the will, to undertake more direct interventions in the market and to challenge, not merely subsidize, corporations. A century ago, America faced a problem almost identical to the broadband shortage: rural electrification. Well into the 20th century, life in much of rural America was little changed from the 19th. Without electric appliances—refrigerators, washing machines, even lamps—running a farm was backbreaking, round-the-clock work. By 1935, private providers had electrified more than 80 percent of nonfarm households but only 11 percent of farm households. That year, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress created the Rural Electrification Administration to address this problem. At first, REA Administrator Morris Cooke hoped to partner with private electricity companies, not unlike our current subsidy-heavy approach for broadband. However, those companies argued that rural electrification would not be financially self-sustaining. Even with government support, they proposed building out to only 351,000 new customers, which would leave millions unconnected. The New Dealers recognized that subsidies to private firms could only go so far. So they turned to three other strategies. First, when the private sector was unable to serve all Americans, the REA organized communities across the country to develop their own, cooperatively owned electricity-distribution networks, funded by the federal government. The REA encouraged state laws to charter these cooperatives, provided engineering support to build infrastructure, and assisted cooperatives in negotiating for sources of electrical power. Second, the New Deal created public options. Federal government–owned providers, most famously the Tennessee Valley Authority, were established to generate electricity at affordable rates. These public options functioned as an important 'yardstick,' in Roosevelt's words, to evaluate the performance of the private sector. If the private sector refused to offer electricity at affordable rates, the TVA could step in to sell electricity directly to cooperatives instead. Third, private-sector electricity providers were classified as public utilities subject to strict regulation. The government couldn't build public plants to generate power across the entire country or successfully organize every community. So it required electric companies to expand services to cover everyone in their existing and adjacent service areas, even households that were unprofitable to serve. These utilities were required to set prices that allowed them to turn reasonable but not excessive profits. George Packer: How Virginia took on Dominion Energy The REA was a success. By 1940, a quarter of farm households were electrified, and by 1953, that figure had risen to 90 percent. That same year, retail rural electricity rates approximated rates found in urban areas. A similar approach could be applied to rural broadband today. Local governments could offer public broadband—as happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has one of the fastest broadband networks in the world, run by the municipally owned electric company, a public option that competes with Xfinity and AT&T. Cooperatives could purchase internet service in the same way as they buy electricity. And public-utility regulations could require broadband providers to cover areas adjacent to their service areas at a reasonable price in exchange for rate regulation. So why has the federal government focused on subsidizing for-profit ISPs rather than using the mixed approach that worked during the New Deal era? Consider what happened in Chattanooga. After its municipal model proved successful, ISPs saw a threat and mobilized. They successfully lobbied lawmakers to pass laws restricting public options in broadband. Twenty-five states, including Tennessee, had such laws on the books in 2019, according to a report by BroadbandNow. In Congress, Democrats have repeatedly proposed federal legislation to preempt such state laws, but those proposals have languished. And although some of the state limits on public options have been repealed, 16 states still restrict municipal broadband. Lobbying from ISPs might likewise explain why the FCC has never used its existing legal authority to require ISPs to expand service at mandated affordable prices. (A conservative appeals court foreclosed that option for the FCC only recently.) The lesson of rural broadband is that some government failures are due not to procedural excess, but to giving up on regulatory tools that might antagonize Big Business. Unfortunately, learning this lesson again may now cost us $42.5 billion. Last week, the Department of Commerce rolled back many procedural hoops of the BEAD program—ostensibly with the same goals as RDOF. It's tempting to think that America can learn how to build again without having to wage difficult battles against powerful corporate interests, simply by eliminating bureaucratic red tape. But if efficient building were really so easy, we'd already be doing it.
Business Wire
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Fiber Broadband Association Marks Industry Investment in U.S. Manufacturing
NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at , the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) released data that shows the positive potential of NTIA BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) broadband infrastructure funding program, reflected through its members' investment response to comply with Build America, Buy America (BABA) for the program. A number of FBA's BABA-compliant members reported nearly $650 million of investments to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. and 5,600 new jobs created to date. This effort has led to an additional 1,325,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity added with either new manufacturing facilities being built and/or expanded over the past two years -- representing 72+ manufacturing facilities across 28 states. Fiber is the primary network technology required by the BEAD Program to comply with BABA. "The fiber broadband industry creates thousands of jobs and contributes billions of dollars to the American economy. The BEAD program has catalyzed FBA members to onshore fiber manufacturing investment and jobs. The continuation of BEAD funding is critical for closing the digital divide, preserving good jobs, stimulating the economy, and maintaining American leadership," said Marissa Mitrovich, Vice President of Public Policy, Fiber Broadband Association. The Buy America Preference applies to BEAD funded infrastructure projects. In a February 2024 Notice of Final Waiver, the Department of Commerce (DOC) issued a limited waiver for certain construction materials and manufactured products used in BEAD funded projects. For instance, DOC found that all optic glass used in manufacturing fiber and fiber optic cable must be BABA compliant, although it provided a waiver for non-optic-glass inputs to the optical fiber pre-form process, and that key fiber transmission electronics needed to be manufactured in the U.S., although it waived the 55 percent cost of components requirement needed. The BEAD BABA Waiver is available at 'The amount of time, effort, commitment, and training required to bring these jobs back to the U.S. cannot be understated, nor should the value these jobs and facilities are having on the communities that will benefit from this new capacity,' said Anis Khemakhem, Chief Marketing Officer, Clearfield. 'The BABA commitment reaches every level of the companies involved, permeating the supply chain and demanding focused organizational alignment. The investment spans from soft costs, such as training, to hard costs, such as product tooling.' Stay updated by subscribing to the Fiber Broadband Association's weekly newsletter here. About the Fiber Broadband Association The Fiber Broadband Association is the largest and only trade association that represents the complete fiber ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers, industry experts, and deployment specialists dedicated to the advancement of fiber broadband deployment and the pursuit of a world where communications are limitless, advancing quality of life and digital equity anywhere and everywhere. The Fiber Broadband Association helps providers, communities, and policy makers make informed decisions about how, where, and why to build better fiber broadband networks. Since 2001, these companies, organizations, and members have worked with communities and consumers in mind to build the critical infrastructure that provides the economic and societal benefits that only fiber can deliver. The Fiber Broadband Association is part of the Fibre Council Global Alliance, which is a platform of six global FTTH Councils in North America, LATAM, Europe, MEA, APAC, and South Africa. Learn more at
The Guardian
05-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
White House to overhaul $42.5bn Biden-era internet plan – likely to Elon Musk's advantage
The Trump administration is preparing to overhaul a $42.5bn Biden-era program designed to connect tens of millions of rural Americans to reliable and affordable high-speed internet, in a move that is expected to benefit billionaire Elon Musk. Howard Lutnick, the commerce department secretary who has oversight of the federal program, recently told senior officials inside the department that he wants to make significant changes to the federal program, sources with knowledge of the matter told the Guardian. Instead of promoting an expensive buildout of fiber optic networks – as the Biden administration sought to do – Lutnick has said he wants states to choose the internet technology that would be low cost for taxpayers. That, experts agree, would favor satellite companies like Musk's Starlink. Musk, whose company owns about 62% of all operating satellites, has not hidden his disdain for Biden-era program, telling voters last year that he believed it should be brought down to 'zero'. Sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Experts generally agree that using satellite services costs less to connect difficult-to-reach homes than fiber. But fiber also provides a more reliable, faster and less expensive option for consumers. Any change to the program could face substantial pushback from states and Congress, including Republican senators who have previously sought assurances from administration officials that the federal program, which is expected to generate billions of dollars in long-term economic growth across some of the poorest states in the US, would largely be left alone. The so-called Bead program (which stands for 'Broadband Equity Access and Deployment') was passed with bipartisan support in 2021 and aimed to connect 25 million Americans to high-speed internet. Under the Biden plan, states were left to make their own plans, request federal funding and hold competitive bids for internet service providers that would build the network. Given different choices of how to connect homes to high-speed internet, the Biden administration said it wanted states to build fiber optic networks, which are expensive to set up but are considered reliable and can offer affordable rates to consumers. In cases where fiber optic networks were too expensive to build, states could opt for cheaper options, like using satellite. 'I don't think there is doubt that Bead will continue,' said Blair Levin, policy advisor to New Street Research, a telecommunications and technology analysis firm. 'What is in doubt is whether people get a long-term solution or something that is definitely good for Elon Musk.' Lutnick has told commerce officials that he wants Bead to be 'tech neutral', which means not favoring one technology over another. It is unclear whether Lutnick would try to force states to choose satellite service over others. Such changes – which would probably be challenged by individual states – would radically alter a program that has faced some criticism but has generally been embraced by both Republican and Democratic governors across the US, who have been expecting to receive billions of dollars in federal funding. The funds would provide an economic lifeline that, according to estimates by Pew, would connect an estimated 56m household in mostly rural communities who are unserved or underserved to high-speed internet. Pew also estimates that the program, as it stands now, would generate at least 380,000 new jobs and fuel more than $3tn in economic growth. The commerce department did not respond to a request for comment. 'The driving force behind Bead was parity. Can you get internet service in rural Wyoming what you can get in suburban Denver?' said one analyst who requested anonymity because they are providing advice to some states on the issue. 'Fiber is utterly critical. If the internet is the most important infrastructure asset a state has, and you are using satellite, then it means you are not building something in your state. It can be turned on and off by the satellite provider.' Any dramatic change to the federal program also raises legal questions. States have spent years planning for Bead, including holding competitive bids for companies to build fiber networks. It is unclear whether the commerce department can force these states to restart their planning from scratch. The overriding criticism of the Biden program is that the bureaucracy took too long, and that not a single household has yet been connected to high-speed internet yet. The Trump administration might argue that states may as well start again to benefit taxpayers. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion For states like Louisiana, which was poised to receive $1.355bn under the Biden program and was the first state to get full approval for its plan, any change could upend estimates that the fiber optic build-out would drive $2bn to $3bn in economic growth for the state and between 8,000 and 10,000 new jobs. Planned investments, like a $10bn AI center that is poised to be built by Meta in Richland parish, a poor farming region in the north-east corner of the state, would depend on fiber optic connections. In a recent letter to Lutnick, the Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, said the state would be ready to break ground on its fiber optic network within the first 100 days of the administration. The top Louisiana official working on the program, Veneeth Iyengar, has said about 95% of the state's funds will be used to build fiber, and the remaining 5% will be used for cable, fixed wireless and satellite. Trump administration officials have balked at the program's price tag. Musk made his views about the program clear at a town hall meeting in Pittsburgh last October, before the election. When he was asked about what he would do to help make the government more efficient, Musk immediately raised Bead as an example of a program he would cut. 'I would say that program should be zero,' he quipped at the time, while also suggesting that his own satellite company, Starlink, could provide internet connectivity to rural homes at a fraction of the connectivity cost. Starlink did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some Republican senators asked Lutnick about his views on Bead during his confirmation hearing, but he offered no promises. When Republican senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska asked Lutnick whether he could assure him that commerce would not rely on Starlink 'as a solution to all of our problems', Lutnick declined to answer, saying only that he would work to pursue the 'most efficient and effective solutions for Alaskans'.
