President Joe Biden announced what he called a “big step” toward internet for all, rolling out a $42 billion investment to deliver broadband to unserved and underserved communities. “With this funding, along with other federal investments, we’re going to be able to connect every person in America to reliable high-speed Internet by 2030,” President Biden said of the funds, allotted through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But now, almost five months since the announcement, some broadband policy experts, advocates and progressives have been sounding the alarm that the program may not accomplish what the president proposed. One concern is that as private equity firms move into the broadband industry, they’ll position their providers to win the fresh round of government funding, squeezing out small and midsize bidders. Advocates fear that the requirements to apply for funding will leave only private equity with the financial bona fides to meet them. The early tension points illustrate the typical, and challenging, growing pains that come along with implementing a plan of this scale.

In response to claims that Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding wouldn't amount to much, Jeff Luong, VP of Network Engineering at AT&T said that the combination of public funds in addition to private investments will be a lot of money that will allow for “the industry, and us as a country, to expand connectivity.” Asked what he would recommend to states that are trying to figure out the best solution, Luong said, “The best way for states to approach that challenge is to create a process, a system that encourages as many providers to participate as possible. The more carriers that participate in the program the more areas will be proposed. The whole process is: the carriers get to propose their location, but ultimately it is the state that helps define what areas they will allocate the funding for. And it’s a negotiation process.” Luong cited a recently completed project in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, as an example of a successful public/private partnership. AT&T worked with Vanderburgh County to deliver fiber broadband to 20,000 residents in a largely rural, farming area. For the project Vanderburgh County used $9.9 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and AT&T covered the remaining $29.7 million. Luong said the example shows that if governments allow some negotiation, that results in the best outcome, “rather than drawing boxes on a map without a clear understanding of where different carriers have assets.”

The collision of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and the recent chaos at OpenAI reveals something even bigger than social media’s shifting tectonic plates—the extent of the society-shaping power wielded by a very small cadre of Silicon Valley titans. Individual personalities—and individual fortunes—matter far more in the world of Silicon Valley startups than they do in corporate America’s more consensus-oriented, traditional bureaucracies. Once, industrial names like Morgan or Rockefeller or Ford drove national policy from their boardroom chairs, a version of America we might have thought we’ve put to rest. Not in tech: Today we take it for granted that Bezos, Zuckerberg and Musk are more or less synonymous with their corporate empires. The lesson for not just America, but humanity writ large, is that a very small group of people have come to wield total, personalized control over many of the systems—whether Musk’s social media platform or Altman’s intelligence machines—that are shaping society’s present and future.

The telecommunications industry has been adding fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers at a clip of between 900,000 and 1 million per quarter over the past five quarters, according to New Street Research. And the analysts say, “We expect similar results over the next two quarters, with T-Mobile targeting around 500,000 per quarter and Verizon targeting 375,000-400,000 per quarter.” FWA has claimed more than 80% of industry broadband adds in the U.S. over the last six quarters. Analysis by Recon Analytics, focused on residential subscribers, found that close to 20% of FWA gross adds are new to broadband; almost double the share for the broadband market overall. This means that FWA is expanding the fixed broadband market.