The debate in Congress over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan has featured a clean, simple attack line from Republicans: Most of the money wouldn’t really go to infrastructure. Of course, that depends entirely on how you define infrastructure. For their purposes, Republicans are opting for a classic definition, seeking to limit the scope to things like roads and bridges. And although that assertion was awarded “Three Pinocchios” by a Washington Post fact-checker, one can make an argument that funding in the plan for things like home-care services and electric vehicle purchases isn’t exactly infrastructure. But Republicans’ objection to one piece of the plan, broadband expansion so that households in all parts of the country have access to fast internet service, seems the result of a particularly curious case of political amnesia. “[Republicans] have previously called for investing in broadband and the expansion of broadband as a means of expanding infrastructure,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “So I would suggest that many of their constituents would be surprised to hear that those are not infrastructure projects.”

Dominance in broadband services has buoyed Comcast stock and other cable TV firms for years, but now a host of issues — including President Biden's latest plan to fund municipal-backed broadband services — are making investors fret. Another concern is fixed 5G broadband services to homes now ramping up due to efforts from Verizon and T-Mobile. A second worry is the expansion of fiber-to-the-home broadband services by AT&T and other phone companies. There's also the global Starlink satellite broadband service in the works from Tesla founder Elon Musk's SpaceX. And now government stimulus funding for competing broadband services appears to be on the way.

Charter Communications employees who have been on strike since 2017 are building an Internet service provider in New York City called "People's Choice." "People's Choice Communications is an employee-owned social enterprise launched by members of IBEW Local #3 to bridge the digital divide and help our neighbors get connected to the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic," the ISP's website says. "We are the workers who built a large part of New York City's Internet infrastructure in the first place. We built out [Charter] Spectrum's cable system, until in 2017, the company pushed us out on strike by taking away our healthcare, retirement, and other benefits. It's now the longest strike in US history." So far, People's Choice says it has completed rooftop antenna installations at two schools in the Bronx and installed "hardline connections to wireless access points connecting 121 units" at housing for survivors of domestic violence who have disabilities.