NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield Testifies Before U.S. House on Farm Bill Priorities

Shirley Bloomfield, Chief Executive Officer of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture on NTCA’s broadband priorities for the 2023 Farm Bill. Those priorities include meeting the needs of consumers for decades to come by supporting high-speed symmetrical broadband networks, streamlining the permitting process and identifying eligible areas and providers to ensure that deployment funds are targeted to where they are most needed. Bloomfield stressed that “the minimum speed and other performance criteria for receiving federal funding must be determined by the needs of rural consumers and not set by the maximum capabilities some in the industry feel they can offer.” NTCA has advocated that those seeking network deployment loans and grants should be required to meet a minimum 100/100 Mbps speed threshold when delivering services in rural America.