WISPA worries new ReConnect rules will hurt FWA broadband providers

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) just announced plans to unleash more than $1 billion in fresh funding for rural broadband via its Broadband ReConnect Program, but not everyone is rejoicing. Claude Aiken, CEO of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA), warned new rules adopted for the latest funding round could effectively cut fixed wireless access providers out of the running. Aiken argued that “innovators and entrepreneurs on the front lines of closing the digital divide likely will find themselves unable to access this funding, and, worse yet, could have their efforts to connect rural America undone by the funding.” This $1.15 billion in funding announced by the USDA will be distributed as part of the ReConnect Program’s third funding round. In earlier funding rounds, the USDA specified applicants must target areas that lacked access to broadband service with speeds of at least 10 Mbps upstream and 1 Mbps downstream. Projects receiving funding were required to provide service offering at least 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. But those two metrics have been changed for the third round: providers will be permitted to apply for funding to serve areas lacking access to service of at least 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up and they must promise to deliver symmetrical 100 Mbps service in order to be eligible for funding. Aiken concluded, “Put simply, this will hurt small, rural internet service providers. The end result will be inefficient overbuilding of these vibrant community-based networks that have served this country so well.”