Dig Once: The Digital Divide Solution Congress Squandered And Policy That Could Save $126 Billion On Broadband Deployment

Installing high-speed fiber-optic infrastructure is incredibly expensive. By some accounts, it can cost up to $8,000 per home to have the cabling put in place. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Federal Highway Administration report detailed that up to 90 percent of this cost was tied up in the process of actually digging up roadways, not the fiber lines themselves. As a result, some cities and states champion the idea of future-proofing PROW’s (public rights-of-ways) during road construction projects. This common-sense concept is frequently referred to as ‘Dig Once’, and would mandate the inclusion of broadband conduit—flexible plastic pipes which can be used to more easily install fiber-optic communications cable—during the construction of any road receiving federal funding.

The practice effectively eliminates the need to dig up recently-paved roads to expand broadband infrastructure, significantly reducing the cost of building out internet access to underserved communities across the country. Congress had the chance to make this the national standard in 2018 with the Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2018, but the bill didn’t pass. A similar bill was ultimately enacted, though lacking any specific dig once requirement. Goldman Sachs has estimated that it could cost upwards of $140 billion to build high-speed service out to the entire country. If dig once had been implemented nationally, it could’ve provided up to $126 billion in savings, bringing the estimated total to a far more palatable $14 billion. Despite the fact that this basic principle is widely agreed-upon by both sides of the political aisle, progress at the national level has stalled completely, and only 11 states have actually followed through with implementing formal or informal policies. 18 cities around the nation have done the same.