So yes, there’s going to be an historic, welcome infusion of broadband subsidies to areas that need it, but I’m also positively certain that without competent state and federal corruption reform — and a general lack of interest in reining in monopoly power (in both markets and across government) — there are also going to be telecom boondoggles, waste, and fraud on a scale we’ve never quite seen before.. .
Monday’s announcement marked the launch of a three-week nationwide tour by President Joe Biden and other White House officials to tout the administration’s economic plan.
Here’s how much each state received:
- Alabama: $1,401,221,901.77
- Alaska: $1,017,139,672.42
- Arizona: $993,112,231.37
- Arkansas: $1,024,303,993.86
- California: $1,864,136,508.93
- Colorado: $826,522,650.41
- Connecticut: $144,180,792.71
- Delaware: $107,748,384.66
- District of Columbia: $100,694,786.93
- Florida: $1,169,947,392.70
- Georgia: $1,307,214,371.30
- Hawaii: $149,484,493.57
- Idaho: $583,256,249.88
- Illinois: $1,040,420,751.50
- Indiana: $868,109,929.79
- Iowa: $415,331,313.00
- Kansas: $451,725,998.15
- Kentucky: $1,086,172,536.86
- Louisiana: $1,355,554,552.94
- Maine: $271,977,723.07
- Maryland: $267,738,400.71
- Massachusetts: $147,422,464.39
- Michigan: $1,559,362,479.29
- Minnesota: $651,839,368.20
- Mississippi: $1,203,561,563.05
- Missouri: $1,736,302,708.39
- Montana: $628,973,798.59
- Nebraska: $405,281,070.41
- Nevada: $416,666,229.74
- New Hampshire: $196,560,278.97
- New Jersey: $263,689,548.65
- New Mexico: $675,372,311.86
- New York: $664,618,251.49
- North Carolina: $1,532,999,481.15
- North Dakota: $130,162,815.12
- Ohio: $793,688,107.63
- Oklahoma: $797,435,691.25
- Oregon: $688,914,932.17
- Pennsylvania: $1,161,778,272.41
- Rhode Island: $108,718,820.75
- South Carolina: $551,535,983.05
- South Dakota: $207,227,523.92
- Tennessee: $813,319,680.22
- Texas: $3,312,616,455.45
- Utah: $317,399,741.54
- Vermont: $228,913,019.08
- Virginia: $1,481,489,572.87
- Washington: $1,227,742,066.30
- West Virginia: $1,210,800,969.85
- Wisconsin: $1,055,823,573.71
- Wyoming: $347,877,921.27
- American Samoa: $37,564,827.53
- Guam: $156,831,733.59
- Northern Mariana Islands: $80,796,709.02
- Puerto Rico: $334,614,151.70
- U.S. Virgin Islands: $27,103,240.86
Biden Re-Announces $42 billion Investment In Broadband, Because Apparently People Didn’t Notice The First Time
from the if-at-first-nobody-notices... dept
While the Biden administration has been a bit of a hot mess on broadband consumer protection (see: the Gigi Sohn fiasco), the administration has done some amazing things for overall investment in broadband. Largely thanks to both COVID relief legislation (The American Rescue Plan Act, ARPA) and the IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act).
When the IIJA was signed into law in late November of 2021, the administration, and most of the press, clearly pointed out the bill included a whopping $42 billion to shore up broadband access. Apparently nobody noticed, because the White House is… announcing it again now that money is about to start flowing in earnest:
President Biden on Monday is set to announce more than $42 billion to expand high-speed internet access nationwide, commencing the federal push to help an estimated 8.5 million families and small businesses finally take advantage of modern-day connectivity.
The money, which the administration plans to parcel out to states over the next two years, serves as the centerpiece of a vast and ambitious campaign to deliver reliable broadband to the entire country by 2030 — ensuring that even the most far-flung parts of the United States can reap the economic advantages of the digital age.
It didn’t get much traction the first time around because it’s not as attention-grabbing as falsely claiming rudimentary “AI” chatbots will kill us all or falsely claiming poorly drawn NFTs will revolutionize the planet. But it’s going to be transformative all the same. You can see a breakdown here of how much each state is prepared to receive in broadband subsidies, and the totals are historic.
I spend pretty much every week now talking to a different city, town, utility, or cooperative, and they’re all busy using (or planning to use) either COVID relief money or infrastructure bill cash to build amazing things. Many of them are in the process of delivering affordable, gigabit-capable fiber to rural regions for the first time in history, or building open access fiber network that will finally drive competition to markets long ago monopolized by companies like AT&T and Comcast.
The problem, of course, will be several fold. One, despite spending $400 million on the problem, the government still doesn’t have particularly accurate broadband maps. And while the FCC is working to slowly fix that, the end result has been a bit of a mess so far, and it’s something entrenched monopolies can exploit to overstate coverage and misdirect essential funds away from promising challengers.
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