Avoiding a $75 Billion Broadband Flop

How much broadband will Americans get for the $75 billion that Congress committed in 2021? That’s enough money to equip an additional 17 million households with broadband, taking the US to 99 percent broadband coverage, according to a Federal Communications Commission staff paper and data from the Census Bureau. Whether taxpayers get that much broadband for their $75 billion will depend on government officials avoiding past mistakes. Congress provided the $75 billion through two pieces of legislation: the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). These bills added funds to some existing broadband programs and created new ones. The programs are overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the FCC, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS), and the Internal Revenue Service. About 75 percent of the $75 billion is for expanding broadband. The remainder is for affordability and equity programs and administration. NTIA is responsible for about 70 percent of the money. The authors of the ARPA and IIJA followed well-worn paths in choosing their programs. Unfortunately, these were paths to programs that failed to produce. Given that the ARPA and IIJA set government officials on paths that went nowhere in the past, what can be done to ensure that the $75 billion of taxpayer money isn’t wasted?