How the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee Could Shape Cities’ Digital Future

In July 2018, the 30 members of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee gathered at the Federal Communications Commission to develop and agree to debate new model state and local laws for broadband deployment. The group comprised one elected official and five total representatives of state or local governments — along with a wide range of members representing telecommunications companies, academic institutions known for their opposition to municipal broadband investment, and stakeholders representing the National Grange and LGBT Technology Partnership & Institute. Together, they represented the committee charged with writing state and local laws on broadband deployment. But with just a handful of local government officials onboard, the ramifications for cities could be serious. Local representatives had spent hundreds of hours of work on documents for the BDAC, only to repeatedly be outnumbered and outgunned by industry participants to ensure that the final products stripped local authority. Meanwhile, BDAC was doing nothing to address the digital divide for rural and low-income Americans.