Let Residents Finance Broadband Infrastructure Themselves

The main barrier to broadband deployment in rural areas is not government regulation but simple economics. Rural areas with low population densities cannot provide fast enough returns on investment to satisfy the requirements of for-profit companies. Local governments, such as townships, have little to no control over any regulations that would have any effect on broadband deployment costs. The assertion that local governments would “favor their own projects” implies a competitive scenario that does not exist in rural areas, and ignores the fact that the local governments in these rural areas want to partner with private companies to provide broadband, not compete with them. Now more than ever it is critical to enable more tools for broadband financing rather than artificially limit communities’ choices on working locally to close the broadband gap.

[Benjamin J. Fineman is the President of Michigan Broadband Cooperative]