Biden's $44 billion broadband-expansion initiative may hit a snag

Some U.S. legislators are pushing legislation to make sure that rural states don't get shortchanged by the $42.5 billion broadband expansion program that the Biden administration is planning to implement.

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Senators from both parties introduced a bill on Friday that would require the Biden administration to conduct another review of the program before determining how much funding each state will receive. As a result, the federal government is making its largest ever one-time commitment to establishing broadband networks for Americans who do not currently have access to it.  

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Several senators, including Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) and John Thune (R., S.D. ), have said that the law as it currently stands would not allow federal officials to ensure that funding is distributed based on accurate maps of which homes and businesses lack broadband access. 

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They propose a bill that would delay by seven months the final decision about state funding allocations, which may cause some broadband projects to be delayed in the beginning.  

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There is no doubt that the money would be moved quickly out the door, according to a spokesman for Ms. Rosen.

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As part of the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021, the program is intended to provide funds to states based on broadband maps under development at the Federal Communications Commission. The initial version of those maps released last fall was criticized by senators and other federal and state officials, who said it did not include a large number of unserved Americans in their states. 

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It is possible that there may be an undercount, resulting in a reduction in the total dollar amount that each state receives once the Commerce Department determines the state-by-state funding amounts, which is expected midway through the current fiscal year. 

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As the controversy over the maps continues to plague U.S. efforts to expand broadband services, it is the latest issue to loom over those efforts. There have been at least two attempts to upgrade broadband service in many communities, yet they are still waiting for high-speed internet access, according to a report in Trade Algo. 

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Ms. Rosen highlighted her annoyance in a statement over the Biden administration's refusal to accede to her demands to slow down the procedure.

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“Because the FCC is unwilling to fix its deeply flawed broadband map and because the Department of Commerce is unwilling to wait until the map is fixed before allocating broadband funds, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for high-speed internet in Nevada are at risk,” she noted. 

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There was no immediate comment from White House or Commerce Department representatives as of Friday. 

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There is a possibility that any delay in the program could be met with resistance from administration officials who have touted federal broadband spending at a series of public events, making their "Internet for All" initiative a key part of the president's first-term push to upgrade infrastructure across the country. 

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The FCC declined to comment on the matter. The FCC's Chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, indicated in a blog post last week that the broadband maps, which were first released last fall, are constantly being improved as the FCC incorporates input from state officials, internet service providers, and other stakeholders into its work. 

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The new versions of the maps, which are to be released later this spring, will include three million new places where Americans live or work, and may require service, on top of the more than 100 million locations that are already identified, she said. 

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The maps are based in part on self-reported data from the internet service providers regarding what addresses they serve, and at what speeds they provide those services. 

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Apparently, some state authorities believe that the internet-service providers overestimated the amount of coverage they had, resulting in the number of locations that were considered "unserved" with high-speed internet service being drastically reduced. 

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There have been efforts by the states to challenge the data under the FCC's process for doing so, and there have been campaigns launched by the states to build public awareness, encouraging consumers to do the same. 

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“We feel that there has not been enough verification that self-reported information is accurate, and it has fallen completely to the states to verify this,” said Brian Mitchell, director of Nevada’s broadband office within the governor’s office of science, innovation, and technology. "There should be no responsibility for this to be placed on state and local governments as well as individual citizens."

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"A number of teams from the state have been dispatched to remote areas to conduct speed tests or map broadband infrastructure - often at great cost to the state," he said. During the first half of January, the Nevada broadband office had submitted 20,000 challenges to the reported service status of homes and businesses in the state and was in the process of submitting another 600,000. 

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This spring, the FCC is going to publish updated maps, after which it will once again accept challenges. However, it may only be a matter of weeks before the Commerce Department announces state-by-state funding allocations, a decision that is expected around the 30th of June. 

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Sens. Rosen and Thune propose a bill that would prevent the Commerce Department from finalizing its initial allocation decision for the upcoming fiscal year. Rather, the funding amounts would have to be recalculated by the agency after 210 days, based on the best maps available at the time - delaying the date the states would be able to know how much money they can expect to receive by that time.