Biden’s Plan for Broadband Isn’t Bold Enough

President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan is smart to look beyond ports and potholes. But I worry about the part of the plan aimed at expanding broadband. It’s both too ambitious and not ambitious enough. The Biden plan doesn’t ask for enough money. It proposes a $100 billion budget over eight years to close America’s digital divide, similar to a parallel bill in Congress. My research team estimates the budget needs to be at least $240 billion — more than double the current target. An inescapable conclusion is that the plan’s budget is not ambitious enough and has a budget shortfall of $140 billion. At the same time, the Biden plan is too ambitious in its proposed solution. It intends to solve the broadband problem through local public and municipal networks — those that operate without a profit motive. That will be difficult to do, to say the least: Municipal networks are banned in at least 18 states. President Biden will have to work with other, better-resourced parties. He will also have to find new ways to raise revenue to pay for the upgrades to America’s digital infrastructure. I would propose a two-part solution. Both involve Big Tech, the industry that makes the most money from better connectivity. First, consider a “tech tax” to narrow the budget gap. Second, the federal government should partner with the big, for-profit players to bring broadband to disconnected areas — something nonprofit, municipal players can’t realistically do.

[Bhaskar Chakravorti is the dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and founding executive director of Fletcher's Institute for Business in the Global Context.]