Tennessean, The

As of mid-August 2023, nearly 20 million American households have enrolled for the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) – a federal program that’s provided affordable internet to our country’s most vulnerable and enabled them to stand a chance at competing in the quickly digitizing world. However, only 

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development is awarding $446,770,282 in grants for the expansion of internet access across Tennessee. Nearly $50 million more will be directed to broadband adoption and digital literacy efforts. More than 150,000 unserved homes and businesses in 58 counties receiving broadband access. Priority was given to applicants with the lowest internet speeds, though all “unserved” areas (where only services with speeds below 100 Mbps download speed and 20 Mbps upload) were considered for the grant.

Among the key provisions of the trillion-dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden is $65 billion that will be dedicated to improving access to reliable high-speed internet. This new law aimed at closing the digital divide also should be used to close the digital privacy divide — the gap between more personal information being stored and shared and the level of privacy protection for online users that is provided to them.

Incremental progress and temporary band-aids to mend the digital divide aren't a sufficient response to such a fundamental obstacle to equity and opportunity; as the late Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis argued, unequal internet access is "the civil rights issue of the 21st Century." That's why Congress must now work to transform the temporary Emergency Broadband Benefit initiative into a permanent broadband assistance program. Civil rights advocates–including the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council–have laid out a 

More rural Tennesseans will have access to reliable broadband services through state tax breaks or grants, "deregulation" and consumer education, Gov. Bill Haslam said in introducing the latest plank of his legislative agenda. "Unfortunately today, too many of our citizens are without broadband access. In fact, 34 percent of our rural residents do not have broadband access at recognized minimum standards," Gov Haslam said. Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said the 34 percent figure represents about 725,000 people.

The announcement of the plan, officially known as the "Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act," comes after more than a year of meeting with state leaders and "stakeholders," Gov Haslam said. Expanding broadband is not new to Tennessee or other rural states, and has been hotly debated in the past. That includes an ongoing debate in Chattanooga and elsewhere over whether municipal providers – cities and counties – should be allowed to provide service outside of their borders.

Google Fiber scored a major victory in its effort to expand to Nashville (TN), netting final Metro Council approval of a proposal known as One Touch Make Ready that the company has made the focal point of its gigabit Internet rollout here. But while the council's action — which came by a voice vote — caps weeks of intense debate and failed negotiations surrounding utility pole attachment methods, it probably sets the stage for a legal battle.

Executives from AT&T, which sued Louisville (KY) after it passed a similar ordinance, have made clear that Nashville can expect a lawsuit if One Touch Make Ready becomes law. Supporters of Google Fiber have framed the issue as allowing more competition against existing providers Comcast and AT&T, which have both opposed the measure. The council's top proponents pushed that theme Sept 20. The council's approval came after it first voted 26-12 to defeat a proposal from Antioch-area Councilwoman Tanaka Vercher, a critic of the measure, to delay voting for two meetings. She said the council needed more information on how Google plans to pick which communities it will serve. A similar deferral effort was narrowly defeated by the council two weeks ago. The ordinance now heads to the desk of Mayor Megan Barry, who has refrained from taking an up-or-down position on One Touch Make Ready, seeking compromise among providers. Nevertheless, she plans to sign the bill into law. “One Touch Make Ready appears to be a common-sense way of speeding up the deployment of high-speed Internet throughout Davidson County," Barry said in a statement.

In the face of a legal threat and opposition from Nashville’s (TN) two largest internet providers, the Metro Council on Sept 6 gave preliminary approval of legislation that Google Fiber says is critical for its broadband rollout into Nashville. The council voted by a wide 32-7 margin to advance Google Fiber-backed legislation dubbed One Touch Make Ready that would change the city's policy regarding utility poles and help expedite Google Fiber's entry into the Nashville market. The vote was the second of three required to pass the ordinance. The council's action was a big win for Google Fiber and came after the council voted 20-19 to defeat an effort opposed by Google Fiber to delay consideration of the ordinance until December.

"This is an extremely big step forward, an extremely big net positive for Nashville, for internet competition," said Councilman Jeremy Elrod, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "It increases competition, increases telecom and internet investment for we as a city and our citizens as a whole." At issue is a process of attaching new lines to utility poles. Google Fiber says the current system could be improved by allowing one contractor to move all lines at once to make a pole ready for a new provider. New companies must currently wait on each existing provider to move their lines, a process that can take a few months per line and that delays internet installation.

[Commentary] On June 14 Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke touted the economic impact of the municipal broadband system in his city. Chattanooga’s fiber system required a $330 million investment, with $105 million coming from federal taxpayers. A sizeable share has also been shouldered by the city’s captive electricity ratepayers. Demonstrating the economic benefits of such massive investments — about $4,400 per customer — is a necessary political task, albeit a tricky one, especially since most Chattanoogans purchase service from private providers in that city.

Upon inspection, the mayor’s claims just don’t add up. Mayor Berke’s lead claim is that the “city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 4.1 percent from 7.8 percent,” over the past three years. Yet, over the same period, the nationwide unemployment rate fell from 7.5 percent to 4.7 percent. In terms of unemployment, Chattanooga isn’t much different than the nation as a whole. Unless the Chattanooga system is having nationwide economic impacts, it’s pretty clear that attributing the unemployment decline to a city broadband network is bogus.

[Dr. George S. Ford is the Chief Economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]