President Joe Biden regularly emphasizes how the major pieces of legislation he has signed — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — expand opportunities for Americans. This is especially true for rural Americans. Those three laws appropriated billions of dollars — about $464 billion — for many projects that could be particularly relevant to rural communities, allowing them to dream of a different economic future. Will rural voters give President Biden credit for all that money and the changes it could bring and will show their appreciation at the ballot box. My answer is that it is unrealistic to expect place-specific investments to have an immediate impact on elections. Rural places remain skeptical that federal policymakers have their best interests at heart. Proving otherwise will take intention and time. Above all, implementation matters. These investment opportunities will be meaningless unless they reach rural America. For that to happen, federal and local officials and many people in between will need to focus on intentional targeting and sensitivity to the challenges that rural places face. It is important to keep in mind that many rural governments are led by unpaid elected officials, and few rural city halls have staffs to work on planning, project development and grant writing. A critical first step will be to make sure that local communities have the staff and access to the expertise and administrative capacity necessary to secure and manage these investments.

[Tony Pipa is a senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution]

Today’s interconnected world makes it hard to imagine a day or more without internet access, but that may soon be the reality for millions of Americans when funding for a critical federal program runs out. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provides a monthly subsidy to eligible low-income households to help pay their monthly broadband bill. The ACP has made tremendous progress in getting and keeping low-income Americans connected to affordable broadband, but if Congress fails to fund it by the end of May, the digital divide will widen. The ACP is the nation’s most successful and sensible broadband affordability program by many metrics. The program’s popularity stems from a few factors. First, the subsidy amount makes a meaningful difference for those with limited resources. For the fiscally minded, ACP differs from most federal programs because, to borrow a phrase, it provides “a hand up, not a handout.” Politically, Americans support renewing the program: 79 percent of all Americans, including 64 percent of Republicans, 78 percent of independents and 95 percent of Democrats. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, funding the ACP offers a rare win for all—for members of Congress, constituents, veterans, seniors, students, workers and our future. Members on both sides of the aisle should renew funding for the program and keep America connected.

[Mignon L. Clyburn was the first acting female chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission. Michael O’Rielly served as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2020.]

Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) broadband benefits are set to halt at the end of May, leaving millions of families with a difficult choice to make. For the sake of 60 million Americans who depend on ACP, the program must be renewed. But we can’t stop there. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the US “the standard bearer for high-speed internet connectivity”, lauding the US sector as more competitive than its European peers. In reality, the US has some of the world’s highest internet prices, thanks to years of industry consolidation, anti-consumer practices, and corporate lobbying to block competition. Studies consistently show Europeans pay about half what Americans do for the same level of service. High prices keep people offline. While ACP is essential to limit the number of families being pushed off the digital precipice, it doesn’t address the broken nature of a sector which has left over 80 million Americans with only one choice of provider. Getting to the root of the problem means changing the way broadband is built and shaping a more competitive sector. A growing number of communities are building their own solutions in the form of municipal and community-owned networks, co-ops, and public private partnerships.

The mayor of the city of Vineland (NJ) says residents of his city are underserved by currently available broadband services. And he’s moving forward with a plan to create a municipal broadband network. This has already sparked lobbying against the prospect by a dark money group called the Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation. According to the city’s initial proposal, Vineland suffers from high economic distress with some areas having unemployment rates as high as 9% and poverty rates as high as 19.2%. The city says the incumbent providers have no plans to expand or enhance their services in Vineland. So, the city plans to tackle the problem itself by funding a $35-$40 million project to construct a municipally-owned fiber broadband network. It plans to construct a fiber ring around the city and make high-speed, competitively priced broadband available to every resident and business. The city has begun the process by commissioning a feasibility study—conducted by the open access fiber company Bonfire—which found that “at least 42% of the city does not have access to viable, quality service.”

The Federal Communications Commission recently voted to subject the Internet, once again, to legacy public utility telecommunications regulation originally designed for the old Ma Bell monopoly. While the FCC’s new rules do not push so far as to regulate retail rates (though they do regulate wholesale termination rates), the FCC’s rules open the door to potential retail rate regulation of broadband services by the states. Some special interest groups have called for rate regulation, while others desire the outright government takeover of broadband networks. A sensible question to ask is what should consumers expect from a broadband market subject to these more aggressive sorts of public utility regulation or complete government ownership of broadband networks? Analysis reveals (at least) two policy-relevant insights. First, despite the highest inflation the nation has seen in decades, broadband prices are falling. Second, the regulation and nationalization of broadband service is no cure for allegations of high broadband prices, which are, in fact, falling over time unlike the prices of rate-regulated and nationalized services. Broadband services should be left to competitive market forces, a policy which has served consumers well during the recent economic turmoil.

Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO of Verizon’s consumer business, recently said that Verizon expects to have 4 to 5 million fixed-wireless access (FWA) customers at the end of 2024, up from 3.4 million at the end of the first quarter of 2023. Financial analysts at TD Cowen who predict that Verizon will add 888,000 new net subscribers in 2024 while T-Mobile will add 1.3 million more customers to add to the 4.8 million customers at the end of 2023. FWA broadband has majorly disrupted the broadband industry. According to the TD Cowen estimates, FWA operators will gain 2.6 million new customers in 2023 while fiber operators will add around 600,000 new customers. It’s clear that FWA growth is probably the most important statistic in the market today since other internet service providers are competing for the customers who aren’t opting for FWA.