Although Republicans recoiled when President Biden unveiled his sweeping infrastructure plan in March, a bipartisan group of senators has thrown its support behind one of the less conventional ideas in the package: making a massive investment in broadband networks. But as crucial as these networks are to the 21st century economy, it’s not just the amount Congress spends that matters. It’s making sure the money is spent the right way. And there’s a split among lawmakers over whether to just help telecom companies extend broadband to the 21 million or more Americans with no access to it — largely but not exclusively in rural and remote areas — or to also upgrade areas with substandard service. It comes down to a question of priorities. Here’s one all taxpayers should embrace: Make sure that the new networks built with these dollars won’t grow quickly obsolete. 

By taking steps to invite competitors into markets, state and local governments could help hold down broadband prices while increasing investment. That’s what happened when Google rolled out its fiber-based service. More competition will also help with the third top priority, affordability. But that’s just part of the answer. Another piece is to make sure that new networks built with federal help offer discounted service to the low-income consumers in their communities. And for communities with existing networks, there needs to be a permanent subsidy program for low-income households.

Governor Roy Cooper today announced the creation of a new Office of Digital Equity and Literacy, a first for North Carolina and the first in the nation. The office is part of the newly created Division of Broadband and Digital Equity within the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT), elevating Gov Cooper's priority to close the digital divide in North Carolina. NCDIT Secretary Jim Weaver has named Nate Denny as the new Deputy Secretary of Broadband and Digital Equity. Jeremy Collins, who served as director of the NC@High Speed initiative in Gov. Cooper's Hometown Strong office, will lead the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy. NCDIT's expanded Broadband and Digital Equity division will be charged with executing Gov Cooper's plan to expand digital literacy offerings and partnerships across North Carolina, including spending $165 million on efforts to achieve digital equity and literacy for all North Carolinians. It will also lead the Digital Equity and Inclusion Collaborative and promote the NC Digital Inclusion Playbook for local municipalities.

The southwest corner of New Hampshire will be blanketed with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks over the next two years, as 16 communities are drawing up plans to enter into public-private partnerships to boost high-speed Internet access in the state. According to New Hampshire’s Southwest Region Planning Commission (SWRPC), six more cities have also issued warrant articles indicating their interest in partnering with a private Internet service provider (ISP) to improve insufficient connectivity. Most of the cities are considering partnerships with Consolidated Communications. Towns voting to issue municipal bonds will execute a 20-year contract under which they own the network and Consolidated maintains, operates and monitors the network. When the 20-year contract ends, each town will be able to renew the contract with Consolidated or request bids for a new network operator. Though the public-private partnership model seems to be serving many well, New Hampshire’s municipalities are able to explore a variety of regional models for broadband improvement thanks to H.B. 1111, legislation passed last year allowing for the creation of Communications Union Districts.

A coalition including Charter Communications, WISPA and public interest groups wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to reject proposals to increase power limits in the shared Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band, saying it would favor macro cell deployments only and jeopardize existing deployments. Other signatories voicing strong opposition to changes in the band include the Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, the Consortium for School Networking, and the Schools, Health & Libraries (SHLB) Coalition. The 3.5 GHz CBRS band has a unique sharing paradigm that includes incumbent federal operations, priority access licenses (PALs), and general authorized access (GAA). The band was designed with lower power limits, as well as smaller county-sized licensing scheme for PALs. The coalition asserts that allowing higher powered operations would “fundamentally alter the nature of CBRS” and the objective to create a flexible band for a variety of use cases. It pointed to existing deployments using CBRS to provide rural broadband, IoT deployments in factories, and private networks delivering connectivity to schools and libraries. Fixed wireless networks in rural areas could be impacted, the groups said, as providers wouldn’t be able to take advantage of higher power levels in part because existing user equipment doesn’t support it.