February 2021

Broadband service gets notoriously worse as you move farther from urban areas, creating gaps in internet access that became more visible after the coronavirus pandemic forced people to work from home, attend school virtually and even see their doctors online. The problem isn't new — people have complained for years about the lack of broadband — but government officials across northeastern Wisconsin are now accelerating efforts to improve speeds in some of the region's most remote areas. One major step for Brown County is finding out exactly how bad the problem is for some residents.

A Q&A with New York Times reporter Cecilia Kang. Why does the net neutrality fight matter? Many Americans have only one or possibly two options for home internet providers. Those companies can in theory decide whether we can view Netflix or YouTube crystal clear or if we see the pinwheel of death as those sites stutter.

Current levels of broadband deployment subsidies should be maintained or increased over the next five years, but policymakers will need to change the way these subsidies are distributed. The base for the Universal Service Fund needs to be broadened and made sustainable. Except in the most remote areas, the standard for publicly subsidized broadband networks should be set at 1 Gbps symmetrical or higher to ensure that public investments will be usable for a generation or longer.

Lawmakers and industry groups are jockeying to shape the broadband internet investments likely to be embedded in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure efforts. Senior Democrats like House Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) are eyeing a revival of their $100 billion package aimed at connecting the unconnected and funding programs to bolster digital equity, which is likely to take center stage in coming weeks. But Republicans, bless their hearts, bristle over bigger price tags and instead point to less costly ways to close the digital divide.