Trump Is Changing the Rural Broadband Rules. Guess Who May Benefit?
The federal government has an
almost absurd number of programs that seek to enhance internet access—133, by
the count of a 2023 Government Accountability Office report,
25 of which have broadband as their primary purpose. But most of them are
relatively small, doling out millions but not billions. Big Democratic spending
bills, such as the Recovery Act under Barack Obama and the American Rescue
Plan signed just after Joe Biden took office, included substantial broadband
funding as well, but it was never enough to get high-speed internet to everyone
in the country. BEAD and its multibillion-dollar budget dwarfs them all, and
was to be the program that would finally achieve the goal.
Here’s how BEAD was supposed to
work. First, the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, had to complete a map
that would identify every “unserved” and “underserved” area of the country,
down to the level of individual homes, where there is either no or substandard
broadband available. Each state then drew up an initial proposal for how it would use its portion of the BEAD funding to approach 100 percent coverage.
That was then followed by an iterative process between the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, a part of the
Department of Commerce, and state governments as the plans got more specific
and refined. Eventually, the states get final approval from the NTIA and the
money goes out.
It’s even more complex and
cumbersome than it sounds. The legislation creating BEAD laid out a 14-step
process that would have to occur before the money is dispersed, one that
included numerous elements advancing liberal goals, including requiring climate
resilience assessments, prevailing-wage requirements for workers, and extensive
community input. These elements would become a target
for Republicans, who complain that “woke” mandates have slowed the process
down.