Lets Stop Talking About Technology Neutral

I want to take on the phrase ‘technology-neutral’. This phrase is being used to justify building technologies that are clearly not as good as fiber. The phrase was used a lot to justify allowing Starlink into the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction. The phrase has been used a lot to justify allowing fixed wireless technology to win grants, and lately, it’s being used more specifically to allow fixed wireless using unlicensed spectrum into the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. The argument justifies allowing technologies like satellite or fixed wireless access (FWA) using unlicensed spectrum to get grants since the technologies are ‘good enough’ when compared to the requirement of grant rules. I have two arguments to counter that justification:

• The only reason the technology-neutral argument can be raised is that politicians set the speed requirements for grants at ridiculously low levels. The 100 Mbps speed requirement is an example of what I’ve recently called underbuilding – it allows for building a technology that is already too slow today. Almost all of the cable companies offer download speeds as fast as a gigabit. Even in older cable systems, the maximum speeds are faster than 100 Mbps. Setting a grant speed requirement of only 100 Mbps download is saying to rural folks that they don’t deserve broadband as good as what is available to the large majority of people in the country. 
• The second argument against the technology-neutral argument is that some technologies are clearly not good enough to justify receiving grant dollars. Consider Starlink satellite broadband. It’s a godsend to folks who have no alternatives, and many people rave about how it has solved their broadband problems. But the overall speeds are far slower than what was promised before the technology was launched. I’ve seen a huge number of speed tests for Starlink that don’t come close to the 100/20 Mbps speed required by the BEAD grants. The same can be said for FWA wireless using a cellular spectrum.