The cost of connecting Nebraska’s Winnebago Tribe reservation with fiber-optic cable could average $53,000 for each household and workplace connected. That amount exceeds the assessed value of some of the homes getting hookups, property records show. While most connections will cost far less, the expense to reach some remote communities has triggered concerns over the ultimate price tag for ensuring every rural home, business, school, and workplace in America has the same internet that city dwellers enjoy. “The problem is, money is not infinite,” said Blair Levin, a senior communications policy official in the Clinton and Obama administrations who is now an equity research analyst. “If you’re spending $50,000 to connect a very remote location, you have to ask yourself, would we be better off spending that same amount of money to connect [more] families?” Providing fiber-optic cable is the industry standard, but alternative options -- such as satellite service -- are cheaper, if less reliable. Congress has left it up to state and federal officials implementing the program to decide how much is too much in hard-to-reach areas. Defenders of the federal broadband infrastructure programs say a simple per-location cost doesn’t capture their benefits. Once built, rural fiber lines can be used to upgrade cell service or to add more connections to nearby towns. For the Winnebago Tribe, the introduction of high-speed internet is seen as a means to spur economic development and to give young people a reason to stay on the reservation, instead of leaving for a city. 

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society joined a coalition of 300 broadband experts, internet service providers (ISPs), community leaders, nonprofits, consumer advocates, and business groups to highlight concerns about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. In a letter to NTIA head Alan Davidson and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the group warns that the program’s letter of credit requirement will block the vast majority of smaller operators, community-centered ISPs, and city-owned networks from securing grants. The result is that these ISPs, which are overwhelmingly the most able and willing to serve currently unserved, primarily small and rural communities the BEAD program is designed to support, will be largely unable to secure funds. By requiring awardees to post an irrevocable letter of credit equal to 25 percent of their grant award—which banks typically insist be collateralized with cash—recipients will “have to lock away vast sums of capital for the full duration of the build, likely several years,”

The Congressional directive in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ensure that there be specific, predictable, and sufficient Federal and State mechanisms to preserve and advance universal service. The dilemma is that the source of Universal Service Fund (USF) programs is end user (i.e. retail) revenues from international and interstate wireline and mobile services, as well as revenue from providers of interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. The reduction of long-distance (inter-state) voice minutes, the transition to non-interconnected services, and cord cord-cutting of wireline phone services have reduced the contribution base—the revenues used to calculate USF contributions—by more than 60 percent over the last two decades. As a consequence, the contribution factor, i.e., the percentage surcharge added to remaining telecommunications service bills, has increased by significant amounts. There is little dispute that the contribution base for USF must be broadened. There are a number of proposals to accomplish that goal, some of which the FCC may be able to employ using its existing powers, and others that would require legislation. The Benton Institute takes no position at this time as to which mechanism would be best.  However, Benton does emphasize that proposals to finance the USF via the Congressional appropriations process are ill advised and, indeed, extremely dangerous. Even with multiyear appropriations (something which is very difficult to accomplish legislatively for both political and technical reasons), leaving USF to the vagaries of the appropriations process would unquestionably conflict with the established—and essential—objective of maintaining a specific and predictable funding mechanism, and would likely endanger sufficient funding as well.

North Carolina’s first Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program. It will connect 6,012 households and 164 businesses in 14 counties to high-speed internet. The CAB program, administered by the NC Department of Information Technology (NCDIT), complements the state’s Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grant program to reach additional unserved areas. Like GREAT grant awardees, all CAB program grantees must participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides eligible low-income households a $30 per month discount on high-speed internet service, or provide access to a comparable low-cost program. CAB program applicants must also agree to provide high-speed service, defined as a minimum of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload, scalable to 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload on or before Dec. 31, 2026. Awardees include:

• Alexander County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Franklin County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Granville County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Haywood County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Hertford County: Roanoke Connect Holdings (FYBE)
• Madison County: Skyrunner Inc.
• Mitchell County: French Broad Electric Membership Corp. (French Broad Fiber)
• Onslow County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Robeson County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Rutherford County: Bellsouth Telecommunications LLC (AT&T)
• Sampson County: Spectrum Southeast LLC (Charter Communications)
• Stokes County: Surry Telephone Membership Corp.
• Vance County: Zitel LLC
• Wilkes County: Wilkes Communications Inc.

The debate over how internet platforms moderate content has reached a fever pitch. To get around First Amendment concerns, some proponents of content moderation regulation argue that internet platforms should be regulated as “common carriers”—that is, internet platforms should be legally obligated to serve all comers without discrimination. As these proponents regularly point to communications law as an analytical template, it appears that the term “common carrier” has become a euphemism for full-blown public utility regulation complete with a dedicated regulator. However, proponents of common carrier regulation provide no details about how this regime would work. Rather than regulate, perhaps there is a far cheaper and less intrusive solution for complaints about undue content moderation than massive government regulation: consumers can simply choose not to use social media platforms.

Northeast broadband provider Archtop Fiber has completed its acquisition of GTel, which will allow Archtop to expand its network in more than five townships across New York’s Columbia County. GTel currently has more than 2,500 customers on a 300-mile fiber network. Archtop indicated GTel won three grants from the New NY Broadband Program to expand to over 5,000 individual locations, “almost tripling” its legacy footprint. GTel states Archtop’s acquisition will bring “new tech-focused jobs and business opportunities” to the region and GTel will have more access to capital for network expansion. Archtop is targeting 500,000 XGS-PON passings in New York’s Hudson Valley region over the next several years. The broadband provider currently serves markets in New York and Pennsylvania but has also expressed interest in expanding to Massachusetts.

As the US sets out to get everyone connected to broadband, it’s about more than just making sure broadband is available everywhere. As Angela Thi Bennett, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) first director of digital equity put it, “We’re not just focused on the technical aspects of building out the network but ensuring that people are at the epicenter.” That, Bennett said, will require a “whole of nation” approach that will involve federal and state partners, philanthropy organizations, and the private sector. According to Bennett, “The states are approaching this not as a check-the-box but approaching it as a meaningful way to incorporate [digital equity] into their plans.” Bennett came to NTIA from the non-profit DigitalC in Cleveland (OH), where she was director of advocacy, a job that entailed “helping to develop a strategy to connect with the community and educating leadership at the local state and national level on the importance of access, not only to high-speed internet but also to resources and skills to improve people’s lives,” she said. The move to NTIA is enabling her to take the work she was doing at the local level to the national level. As Bennett noted, the digital equity plans outlined in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) require “robust local engagement” and bring “the voices of all the people to the table.” Ultimately, it’s “the largest demonstration of participatory democracy that our country has ever seen,” she said.