TIA CEO: Broadband’s value isn’t because it’s a utility

Whether it’s private equity, corporate capital, or government funding, there's a healthy stream of money flowing into broadband networks. TIA CEO Dave Stehlin argued that while broadband is “critical,” it’s not a utility—and it can’t ever be considered so if the country wants funding to keep rolling. He noted 2024 alone saw U.S. operators spend over $90 billion on capital expenditures and network buildouts. Should regulators decide to classify broadband as a utility, “I expect the investment is going to drop significantly,” he warned. Stehlin drummed down that point harder by drawing a parallel to the electrical industry. The average consumer cost for a kilowatt hour of electricity has “almost double[d]” in the last 30 years from about $0.085 to $0.16, he said. In contrast, the cost of a megabit per second of broadband bandwidth has “dropped by 98 percent” in the same time period, from roughly $28/hour to $0.64.