Biden’s Broadband Blowout Is a Waste

Rather than admit the $42.5 billion was unneeded, the administration has tried to rationalize the spending

Letter to The WSJ. 

"“The Broadband Rollout Fiasco” (Review & Outlook, Oct. 5) is real. Few American households live in areas without access to broadband in the first place. In its 2021 Broadband Deployment Report, the Federal Communications Commission found that 99.4% of the U.S. population in 2019 lived in areas that met the FCC’s broadband definition for either fixed or mobile services. The remaining 0.6%, roughly 770,000 households, who lacked access to broadband were mostly in the rural West or Alaska.

The 2021 infrastructure law allocated $42.5 billion to areas “unserved” by broadband. That is more than $55,000 for each unserved household in 2019. Many would have chosen a check for $50,000 rather than a new government service.

Rather than admit that $42.5 billion was unneeded for broadband deployment, the administration took two steps to rationalize the spending. First, although Congress specified that the programs funded be technology neutral, the Commerce Department funded fiber technologies almost exclusively rather than newer, less expensive wireless and satellite technologies. Second, in 2024 the FCC changed the definition of broadband from 25/3 Mbps to a faster 100/20 Mbps, substantially expanding the population of “unserved” areas to about 10% of the population.

Practically all Americans today can access what they consider broadband services from either fiber, wireless or satellite providers, which offer services based on private investment in competitive markets. With $35 trillion of federal debt, $42.5 billion in federal broadband spending is unneeded.

Harold Furchtgott-Roth

Hudson Institute

Washington

Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is a former FCC commissioner."