Removing Broadband Construction Barriers

One of the provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a directive that states should take steps to reduce costs and barriers to fiber deployment. The legislation lists specific ways that states can reduce the cost of a Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant project: promoting the use of existing infrastructure, adopting dig-once policies, streamlining the permitting processes, providing cost-effective access to poles, conduits, easements, and rights-of-way, and requiring reasonable access requirements. Congress hoped that states would reduce barriers, reduce costs, and shorten timelines for BEAD project. The legislation not only directs states to make these changes for building along state highways but implies that states should ask counties and municipalities to make the same changes. Anybody who has ever built fiber would agree on the benefits that come from most of the items on the list. But I’ve seen very little evidence that most states have taken any action, and for the most part, states seem to have ignored the IIJA directive. Most of the changes listed either require legislative change or would mean making changes at embedded bureaucracies like State Highway Departments: two things that are far outside the reach and power of a State Broadband Office.