from the and-by-“fix”-it-I-mean-smashing-it-to-bits dept
We’ve often noted how there are $42.5 billion in broadband grants headed to the states courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. The GOP voted against the bill, but have repeatedly turned around and taken credit for its looming benefits among our broadly misinformed electorate. And, as we predicted, they’re now redrafting key components of the program to the direct benefit of Elon Musk.
To ensure that the $42.5 billion taxpayer money was spent wisely, the bill included numerous provisions, including a recommendation that states try to prioritize the funding of fiber. Because higher capacity fiber is generally future proof, whereas satellite services like Starlink are congested, expensive, harm the environment, and are seeing slowdowns as the network’s customer base grows.
The NTIA also included some bare bones requirements that ISPs taking taxpayer money try to ensure that any resulting service is made affordable to poor people. Big ISPs like Comcast and AT&T were quick to complain last year, and the GOP held fake government “investigations” into the outrageous scandal that is trying to help poor people get online.
These fairly sensible restrictions (which I suspect would have never been enforced in any serious way anyway) are being declared “woke” by the Trump administration, which is changing key parts of the grant program to the direct benefit of Elon Musk:
“Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in a statement yesterday. Lutnick said that “because of the prior Administration’s woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations, the program has not connected a single person to the Internet and is in dire need of a readjustment.”
One reason it’s taken so long to get the funding off the ground is the U.S. government and states needed to more accurately map broadband access. We’ve noted repeatedly how U.S. broadband maps have been historically terrible. The GOP and telecom industry in lockstep has resisted improving them, knowing full well they would highlight widespread market failure and consolidated monopoly harm.
Under a functional broadband grant program, states would push fiber as deeply into rural communities as possible, ideally in the form of “open access” fiber networks that generate local competition. From there, you’d address the rest of the gaps using fixed wireless and 5G, then fill in the remaining holes with low Earth orbit satellite broadband options like Starlink.
But Musk being Musk, and the GOP not really being interested in doing the reading, want to simply throw Starlink at as many Americans as possible, ignoring the service’s congestion problems, high costs, and environmental impact. They want to act as if Starlink is magic, slather their favorite conspiratorial billionaire with subsidies, then declare U.S. broadband effectively fixed.
It’s also worth noting that in many instances they’re renaming the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) to strip the word “equity” out. Because, you know, racist kakistocracy.
The problem is that by redirecting billions of dollars to Musk, you’re directing it away from a lot of locally owned businesses and smaller providers that are intimately familiar with and directly serve these neighborhoods. You’re also potentially directing funds away from extremely popular community owned fiber providers that have made affordability a key focus of their deployments.
Given states have been spending years developing their state specific spending plans for this BEAD program, it’s not entirely clear how successful the GOP will be in rerouting a big chunk of the $42.5 billion to their cronies, but it’s abundantly clear they’re going to give it the old college try.
Filed Under: 5g, bead, broadband, digital divide, elon musk, fiber, grants, infrastructure bill, ntia, satellite, telecom, wireless
Companies: spacex, starlink
