Barreling towards a broadband blunder

The Biden administration’s broadband plan tracks many of the ideas contained in the $94 billion “Internet for all” infrastructure bill that congressional Democrats introduced. And that is not a good thing. Their efforts ignore the billions upon billions of dollars that the Federal Communications Commission already has in the pipeline for expanding Internet service. Democrats’ proposal has made no effort to determine how far existing funds will go or to tailor the size of their legislation to any needs that might remain. Measure never, cut checks often appears to be Washington’s new proverb. Price tag aside, the Democrats’ approach is plagued with substantive flaws that will only make it harder to close the digital divide:

• It dedicates funds to upgrade communities that already have high-speed Internet services so that they can receive the superfast “future proof” connections of tomorrow. 
• It bets on government-owned networks as the future of connectivity
• It puts price controls squarely on the table
• It proposes a haphazard distribution of funds