Op-Ed

For those of us who spent the last four years fighting a totally depressing battle against the last Administration’s nuclear attack on the public interest, springtime has brought the hope of rebirth, regeneration, and reform.   In media and telecom (my beat) we already see the budding of policies and programs to reverse the nation’s embarrassing broadband shortfalls.  Broadband is now seen as essential infrastructure, as important to twenty-first-century life as electricity was to the twentieth.  Not only that, but understanding broadband as a civil right seems to be taking hold.  Better la

President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan is smart to look beyond ports and potholes. But I worry about the part of the plan aimed at expanding broadband. It’s both too ambitious and not ambitious enough. The Biden plan doesn’t ask for enough money. It proposes a $100 billion budget over eight years to close America’s digital divide, similar to a parallel bill in Congress. My research team estimates the budget needs to be at least $240 billion — more than double the current target.

It would not be a stretch to say that the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction has left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. While the FCC was quick to announce success immediately after the close of the auction simply because most eligible areas were assigned, many policy makers and communities see the results as highly problematic and have roundly criticized the outcome, leaving us to ask: Is the FCC’s reverse auction fatally wounded or just bloodied?

With federal broadband infrastructure spending now in play, public officials now must turn their attention to how best to bring high-speed Internet service to those trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide. Partnering with higher education can be a major part of the solution. Partnering with higher ed makes good sense. States and local governments do not have the time, personnel, or expertise to successfully implement such a far-reaching initiative.

As the world gets ready for 5G today, some cellular networks and a few consumers still have 3G technologies even though they are obsolete. 3G, introduced more than 15 years ago, does not offer enough speed or capacity for modern consumers’ thirst for video and life-changing apps. Many service providers are providing significant financial assistance and incentives to enable consumers who remain on obsolete 3G technologies to leap to 5G.

To truly unleash the power of localized broadband deployment, we should ensure all community-based providers have a seat at the table.

Perhaps the last mile is actually the first step in working toward a different vision of who should own and govern the means of computation. What’s at stake for both the tech industry and government regulators isn’t what is or isn’t infrastructure, but what the ownership and profit model for that infrastructure looks like and whom it benefits. Substituting “the means of computation” for “infrastructure” isn’t going to make it any easier to alter those ownership models, but it might make it easier for us to focus on building and maintaining an internet that serves the public’s needs.

Most Republicans and many Democrats have framed broadband much like Ronald Reagan would: Get government out of the way, remove regulations, and let too-big-to-fail incumbent providers bridge the digital divide. A favorite target is public rights-of-way—every street plus about ten feet of land on each side where utility poles or underground utility lines are located, and where internet service providers attach or bury lines and equipment that transmit internet data.

To make the most of technology’s future, the United States again needs a bold infrastructure plan that will create a springboard for new jobs, sustained competitiveness, and broader prosperity. While many details and the need for compromise lie ahead, we believe President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan, or AJP, points in the right direction. Broadband has become the electricity of the 21st century, providing the lifeblood for jobs, healthcare, and education. But like electricity in the 1930s, it hasn’t reached tens of millions of people.

With a proposal to spend $100 billion to ensure that all Americans have affordable and reliable internet service, the Biden Administration has made closing the digital divide a huge priority. Much remains to be done to fill in the specifics of what this means, but two types of policy tools come to mind when thinking about how to address the digital divide. Top of mind is promoting competition. Fostering competition means investing in new infrastructure, thereby giving consumers more choice for very high-speed service.