When Judges Pull the Plug on Rural America

[Commentary] Lincoln made sure we had railroads; FDR made sure we had electricity; Eisenhower made sure we had highways. What US president will make sure we make a national upgrade to competitive, last-mile-fiber-plus-advanced-wireless connections? The question has become even more vital after a disappointing recent court decision that gave the thumbs up to a tactic of big communications companies who, for business reasons, refuse to extend service to rural communities: they can continue to lobby for laws that prevent those communities from setting up their own networks.

The fine-print interpretation by those Sixth Circuit judges has consequences. And some have already happened: Wilson (NC) turned off access for Pinetops (NC) right after the decision came down. The real need here is for national leadership. We need infrastructure banks writing loan guarantees that will lower the cost of accessing capital to build last-mile fiber across the land. We need to set our standards high in defining a basic Internet connection that’s essential for thriving lives — and those standards will need to involve a lot of fiber. To do all this, someone needs to step up, and soon. We need to take the burden off local heroes. It isn’t really their job to fix America’s competitive standing in the world. It’s the job of Congress and it’s the job of the president—but it’s mostly the latter. The president has to see that this isn’t a partisan issue, and that just as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower rose to the occasion, whoever is in the White House in 2017 must also do so, to serve the nation and its people. We can’t afford another administration that doesn’t get this job done.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center.]