Steps the Commerce Department should take to achieve the infrastructure bill’s broadband goals

The recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act makes the largest federal investment into universal broadband access in history. In doing so, Congress gave broadband responsibility to the states, with the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) providing oversight.  This piece lays out eight steps NTIA should take to improve the odds of success in achieving universal connectivity:

1. Protect against risky deployment decisions while advocating for states with other federal agencies.
2. Enable and encourage state-to-state education to quickly scale up operations.
3. Borrow and hire personnel from other agencies with expertise in broadband grants.
4. Encourage processes that result in lower-cost structures for communications networks.
5. Determine whether there are baseline requirements beyond those delineated by Congress.
6. Provide states with expertise on maximizing competitive dynamics in the grant process.
7. Assist with enforcement mechanisms to ensure grant recipients keep their promises.
8. Improve coordination of federal and state broadband programs.

[Blair Levin is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Metro.]