Western Governors Take a Stance on Broadband

The Western Governor’s Association (WGA) represents all of the states west of the line starting with Texas north to North Dakota, includes Alaska, Hawaii, and the western American territories. In July, the WGA issued a policy position paper that lays forth goals for broadband for 2020 through 2028. 

The policy paper begins with the simple statement that broadband is critical infrastructure. The WGA states that the 25/3 Mbps definition of broadband is obsolete and that western economies and communities need faster broadband to prosper. They strongly support the use of more spectrum for rural broadband. The governors support an expansion of the eligibility of telephone and electric cooperatives to build new broadband since these are entities that are tackling a lot of western broadband gaps. They ask for better coordination of efforts to help find broadband efforts for tribal lands, which still are far behind the rest of the West in broadband availability and adoption. They ask the federal government to provide more aid in the form of block grants. They say that states know better on how to solve local broadband problems than do federal agencies.