President Biden silent on municipal broadband as he makes $65 Billion deal with Republicans

President Joe Biden announced a $65 billion broadband-deployment deal with Senate Republicans and Democrats, but he provided no details on whether the plan will prioritize municipal broadband networks as he originally proposed. Congressional Republicans have tried to ban municipal broadband nationwide, so it's highly unlikely that they would have agreed to Biden's stated goal of giving public networks priority over private broadband providers in the next big round of government subsidies. No one is saying yet whether President Biden agreed to drop his preference for municipal broadband in order to make the deal with Republicans. If the status of municipal broadband was not addressed in the agreement, the details would be worked out in upcoming Congressional negotiations. While Republicans would likely want the funding awards to prioritize private providers or even prohibit funding for municipal networks, one potential compromise would be to let public and private networks compete for funding without any restrictions on either.