Remote work can’t change everything until we fix this $80 billion problem

Providing reliable, high-speed internet to remote parts of the U.S. has been a challenge for years. And the COVID-19 pandemic has created a renewed sense of urgency to solve it. Finally solving America’s digital divide will depend on either a technological innovation or governmental intervention. Now there is hope that at least one of those things could be just around the corner. In January 2017—the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as president—Tom Wheeler, then the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, published a report that found it would cost $80 billion to provide universal broadband access to all Americans. The plan has received renewed focus in recent months as a result of the pandemic, but only from one side of the aisle. “Congressman Jim Clyburn [D-SC] has proposed it twice, and it’s passed the House twice as part of the COVID [relief] bill—a $100 billion package—and it’s died twice in the Senate,” says Wheeler, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Wheeler is hopeful that a change in US leadership can help such a bill become law. Even once the Biden era begins, however, it would likely still have to pass through a Republican-controlled Senate.