A Broadband Policy Agenda for the New Administration

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. Requirements for latency and reliability should also be set at a high level. The Federal Communications Commission must vet high-cost program recipients to ensure their plans for achieving broadband standards are realistic. It should hold them to account for meeting their obligations, and claw back and discontinue funding for those that fail to do so. Other grantors should follow similar policies. Public subsidies for broadband should finance fiber backhaul to the internet where necessary. Congress should pass legislation explicitly authorizing the use of E-Rate funding to connect households with schoolchildren to the internet. Congress should enact a permanent broadband benefit paid directly to eligible households and used by them to pay any broadband provider. It can be administered similarly to benefit programs designated for food, heating or education. The amount of the benefit should be sufficient to pay for adequate (not “budget-tier”) broadband. Congress should clarify and safeguard the right of municipalities and municipal utilities to finance, build and operate broadband networks. Federal broadband subsidies should not be made contingent on proposed service areas being unserved or having previously received subsidies. Of course, the quality and price of any existing broadband service in the area should be considered in evaluating the proposer’s business plan. Any entity that can demonstrate technical and financial capacity to build and operate its proposed network should be eligible to apply for broadband grants, loans and other subsidies. The FCC must develop and maintain a granular, accurate, up-to-date broadband map that is correctable through crowdsourcing, and Congress must actively oversee the progress of the mapping effort.