Building Out Broadband Reliability and Access
Background
As of 2019, 26 percent of rural Americans did not have high-speed internet access at home, as compared to just 10 percent of urban residents.[1] There are a number of reasons, including rural housing being more spread out, increasing the cost of building connectivity infrastructure; and the population of rural areas is often older and has a lower median income than urban areas.[2] But increasing access to reliable and fast broadband internet creates a positive ripple effect for rural communities, providing access to a wider array of information, opportunities for remote work and education, and ultimately allowing families to build a better life.
State legislatures have taken steps to address the broadband gap by developing ambitious and measurable goals, centralized planning processes, and multistakeholder coordination to build community-level capacity to plan broadband projects. All 50 states[3] have created an organizing body or authority to plan and deploy broadband expansion projects.[4] As states develop their plans, they should not rely solely on data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as the agency significantly overcounts broadband access.[5] The most economical choice to ensure adequate bandwidth for the long term is investment in bringing fiber-optic cable directly to homes and small businesses. States can also implement “dig once” “dig once” policies to coordinate installation of internet cable at the same time as road construction. Following passage of the 2022 Infrastructure Act, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued “dig once” best practices for states and localities.[6] States can also play an important role in “last mile” solutions to ensure the internet is getting from the wires buried under the road into people’s homes.[7] Some states have taken steps to expand broadband beyond what the telecom industry will offer by supporting municipal broadband development. Allowing players such as municipalities, muni electrics, and electric co-ops to deploy and own broadband infrastructure can dramatically expand service options for both urban and rural communities. Unfortunately, the industry has sought to block development of publicly-owned internet utilities, through preemption laws that complicate or outright ban municipally-owned networks. Currently 17 states have such laws.[8] Another local challenge to new network development can be owners of existing telecom pole infrastructure who may be resistant to new competition. Early outreach to these stakeholders may be a way to find common ground. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=102945 [2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2022/12/08/broadband-access-still-a-challenge-in-rural-affordable-housing [3] “State Broadband Task Forces, Commissions, or Authorities and Other Broadband Resources.” National Conference of State Legislatures, 1 June 2020, https://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/state-broadband-task-forces-commissions.aspx. [4] Smith, Carl. “Which States Have Plans for Broadband Funds?” Governing, 16 Dec. 2021, https://www.governing.com/now/which-states-have-plans-for-broadband-funds. [5] Busby, John, et al. “BroadbandNow Estimates Availability for All 50 States; Confirms That More than 42 Million Americans Do Not Have Access to Broadband.” BroadbandNow, 21 Oct. 2021, https://broadbandnow.com/research [6] https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/Broadband%20Policies%20Mechanisms%20PDF.pdf [7] https://explorebeyond.org/stories/the-last-mile-explained-how-does-cable-internet-work-at-home [8] Casper, Jericho. “The State of State Preemption – Seventeen Is the Number.” Community Broadband Networks, 15 Sept. 2021, https://muninetworks.org/content/seventeen-states-preempt-municipal-broadband.
/fcc-broadband-overreporting-by-state.
Policy Priorities
- Federal: Pass the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, a $100 billion comprehensive bill to expand high-speed internet to all communities. This includes massive infrastructure spending to deploy fiber-optic cable, requirements for affordable plan options, and the expansion of public internet options, such as on school buses.
- Federal: Pass the Rural Improvement Act of 2023, which aims to increase access to broadband internet for rural parts of the country by eliminating “duplicative” broadband programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, merging its current broadband grant program with other grants. It would ultimately increase participation by all types of providers.
- State: Study who has access to broadband, including available speeds and at what costs.
- State: Incentivize broadband infrastructure through “dig once” policies and financing “last-mile” construction.
- State: Remove preemptions to municipal broadband, allowing rural communities greater control in meeting their rural broadband infrastructure needs.
State Examples
For more examples, see the National Conference of State Legislators database of state-level broadband legislation.
- California (2024 CA AB 414) passed a Digital Equity Bill of Rights.
- Minnesota (2016 MN HF 2749) developed specific goals for broadband internet access with download and upload speed targets.[9]
- Legislation enacted in Nevada (2017 NV SB 53) requires the state’s Department of Transportation to coordinate with telecom providers.
- Minnesota (2014 MN HF 3172) created a “border-to-border broadband development” grant program and seeded it with $20 million to fund middle-mile and last-mile broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas of the state. State lawmakers passed another bill (2016 MN HF 2749) to appropriate another $35 million to the program, with a $500,000 carveout to fund projects in low-income communities. California (2021 CA SB 156) enacted legislation that sets the structure and framework for the construction of $3.25 billion in state-owned, open-access, middle-mile broadband infrastructure in rural and urban areas of the state to maximize reductions in the number of households unserved by broadband internet services.
- Tennessee (2017 TN SB 1215) authorized electric cooperatives to provide broadband internet services.
- Arkansas (2019 AR SB 150) passed legislation to authorize local governments, in partnership with private entities, to deploy municipal broadband to unserved areas, and later enacted a bill (2021 AR SB 74) to more broadly authorize municipal broadband. Washington (2021 WA HB 1336) expanded municipal broadband powers beyond first-class cities to second-class cities, towns, counties, and public utility districts. Michigan (2021 MI HB 5037) proposed adding “construction, improvement, and maintenance of communications infrastructure, including broadband and high-speed internet” to the list of local improvement projects that a township board can fund through a bond issuance and a special property tax assessment.
- Arizona (2019 AZ SB 1548) appropriated $3 million to create the Rural Broadband Development Grant, which supports the planning and deployment of broadband and is available to rural governments, federally recognized tribes located in Arizona, economic development nonprofits, and for-profits with at least a five-year history in telecommunications.
- Maine (2015 ME LD 1185) created the Municipal Gigabit Broadband Network Access Fund, a nonlapsing, revolving fund to provide grants to communities, regional partnerships, and municipalities to support broadband development through public-private partnerships. The law was amended (2021 ME LD 1432) to include groups of municipalities as applicants and to allow construction or expansion of open-access broadband networks as an eligible use of the grant funds.
Toolkits
Inspired? Ready to dig in on these issues with your rural neighbors? Our practical communications toolkits will help you connect with new communities through common values. The toolkits provide examples on narrative framing, press release templates, sample talking points, and more.
Click here for the communications toolkit on Building Rural Infrastructure.