Infrastructure

While it is not out of the question that California’s tough privacy law plus follow-up action by other states could encourage Congress to enact legislation, working out issues regarding the right to sue and state preemption controversies would be easier with a Democratic President, House, and Senate than divided party control. In the latter situation, Joe Biden would have to find a few Senators willing to buck their party and vote with him to resolve those issues. Such a coalition could happen, but these kinds of negotiations always are lengthy and complicated.

Voters in several US cities, including Denver and Chicago, approved referendums supporting municipal broadband. 83.5% of Denverites voted to opt out of a Colorado state law that prohibits municipalities from investing in or building their own broadband network, opening the possibility of a city-owned network.

Both unintentionally and by design, we have reinforced a digital caste system that continues to divide communities into the “haves” and “have-nots.” What still remains unclear is not whether we can reverse engineer the disparate impact, but whether we, as a nation, believe that every resident in every community deserves equal access to a digital society. We need a plan, the kind that reaches every corner of the US. We need a nationwide strategy for broadband access that recognizes the importance of high-performance digital infrastructure and supports widespread adoption.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $1.5 million to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas in Virginia. This investment is part of the $550 million Congress allocated to the second round of the ReConnect Program. Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative will use a $1.5 million ReConnect grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network.

There are many challenges to broadband connectivity in rural and unserved areas of Texas, and currently Texas is one of six states that does not have a statewide broadband plan. In studying the progress of broadband development in unserved areas, the Council found that over 300,000 locations in Texas are unserved. As of July 2020, an estimated 926,859 Texans do not have access to broadband at home. The Council found that Texas’ rural population represents approximately 90 percent of all Texans without broadband access. The Council also studied barriers to broadband development in Texas.

All signs are pointing to a third round of the Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect funding program opening in spring 2021. It’s not too early to begin developing an application strategy to position yourself competitively for that opportunity. We expect the program might open at the end of the first quarter of 2021 with a grant deadline 60 to 90 days later.

The South Carolina General Assembly passed a bill supporters said will help get high-speed internet to hundreds of thousands of people in rural areas.

The Federal Communications Commission announced that funding through Stage 2 of the Uniendo a Puerto Rico Fund will result in all locations in Puerto Rico having access to fixed broadband service with speeds of at least 100 Mbps. And nearly one-third of those locations will have access to fixed broadband service with speeds of at least 1 Gbps.

Hundreds of thousands of families are challenged by modern economic, education, and health-care systems while living without internet access in rural Ohio. COVID-19 has exacerbated the issue, but the problem has been persistent in Appalachia for decades. In 2019 the Buckeye Hills Regional Council applied for a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to conduct an eight-county study — in Athens, Hocking, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Noble, Perry and Washington counties — in partnership with Ohio University and the Athens County Economic Development Council.

The Federal Communications Commission has a program, known as the high-cost program, to promote broadband deployment in unserved areas. Although the performance goals for the high-cost program reflect principles in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, not all of the goals are expressed in a measurable or quantifiable manner and therefore do not align with leading practices.