Bridging the Digital Divide

Will the billions of dollars Congress has committed to increasing broadband access be a good investment?

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CLARENDON, Pa.—When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Kurt and Beth Kondak found themselves with multiple kids at home and a struggle familiar to millions of Americans: doing everything online. 

Their son Luke could barely participate in online college classes: “So you’re on a Zoom call trying to talk with your group, obviously, and it keeps cutting out.”* He and his sister Grace started driving 8 miles away to the Kondaks’ family-owned grocery store and deli for a reliable internet connection.

The Kondaks aren’t alone: An estimated 42 million Americans still lack access to broadband (always-connected, high-speed internet), according to a 2021 report by BroadbandNow Research. 

Lawmakers have thrown billions of dollars at fixing that. Last year Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which earmarked $65 billion to build out broadband internet across the country and represents the largest single public investment by the federal government in telecommunications in American history.

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  1. Jason B

    NPR's Planet Money did an episode in May 2020 about small towns that attempted to solve their internet access problems by setting up their own local broadband infrastructure. The short version is that as soon as they got viable enough to capture customers from the big internet providers, state laws were passed to shut them down. Any lasting solution will have to find a way to escape from the combined threats of not enough business case for the big companies to invest and having too much influence to permit new sources of competition. It wouldn't be the first time that larger amounts of investment were ineffective because of failure to consider the economic incentives involved.

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  2. Andy in TX

    Our internet access in rural western Texas was transformed by Starlink. Instead of throwing money at state governments, cut a deal with Musk!

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  3. Ingenero.lux

    I suspect that for that price they could contract with Starlink or Kuiper or Viasat or all three to provide every reliable internet to the entire US via satellite, and start sending out connection kits for free to everyone who needs financial assistance with that. Or other novel options. Unfortunately I suspect we’ll see a series of boondoggles that end up spending an insane sum of money to supply very few people with anything, but I’m cynical that way.

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    CynthiaW

    "Providers have to wade through layers of bureaucratic processes, conduct environmental assessments, and obtain permits from multiple agencies."

    That's often one of the biggest hurdles between "throw money at problem" and "problem solved."

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    Treadmill

    Minor correction:
    I believe fiber (and other) wires are generally mounted to poles, not polls (nor Poles).

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  6. Bill Tuller

    I hope that Fixed Wireless Access becomes more of an option over time. For example a high speed data line could run to a street light and equipment at the top of a street light could beem a 5G signal to peoples broadband modems hanging in their window. Requires a bit more density, but might work for folks living in a rural village.

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      Treadmill

      Bill,
      Using radio (5g, LTE, WiMAX, WiFi, etc) for the "last-mile" is a tempting solution, but the core limiting problem is getting the fiber to the rural village to begin with. If a house is already on an overhead power grid and the municipality is connected to a backbone, it's fairly cheap to run last-mile fiber or coax (with DOCSIS 3.1 you can easily break a gigabit download speed). The real questions are: how do we get backbone fiber to the community, and how do we connect *true* rural subscribers with large setbacks.

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  7. Spooky

    I live in Sussex County, which is probably as remote as you can get while still being in NJ. Up until a few years ago, the best you could hope for, in terms of internet access, was a local cable company which was bought out last year by Optimum or DSL. Thanks to the legislation mentioned above, a local fiber provider (Planet Networks - www.planet.net) was able to buy the materials necessary and hire the workforce necessary to build out fiber internet service across a large area of Sussex County. Every day they get bigger and better - great customer service, fair pricing, and nearly 100% uptime (which is rare if not unheard of for local service).

    (No, I don't work for them; I'm just a happy customer)

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    SD

    I am a librarian involved on the ground in this effort. There are a LOT of households without internet connectivity, although reasons vary between rich and poor communities.

    The money directed towards this effort has been both exciting and frustrating. The money is being used to have internet access installed in places like public parks and public housing complexes. But there are still so many obstacles to individuals getting access. Such as - who wants to sit in a park in a snowstorm to get their homework done; $30 is a tiny drop in the cost of getting access in my city where Spectrum is the monopoly in most neighborhoods and cost for a basic plan can be 2 or 3 times that; people may meet eligibility requirements, but if they have an outstanding bill they still cannot gain access - and most people who worked in the hospitality industry at the time of the start of the pandemic have outstanding bills, etc. and etc.

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    Rjosephpaquette

    Technological advances may make fiber to the home as obsolete as copper phone lines. I’m not sure the money should be saved for the “next” thing rather than the last thing.

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      Rob Smith

      It is unlikely fiber will become obsolete anytime soon. We are still using fiber that we put in the ground 30 years ago but, due to advancements in optronics, we are sending literally thousands of times more data over that old fiber. We haven't come close to the end of ways we can slice and dice the light that travels over that fiber.

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        Slp

        When I read your thread it sounds like you don't consider Starlink a possibility. Is that right?

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        Rjosephpaquette

        I’m sure someone said the same thing about copper phone lines. It’s a matter of time. That factor should be considered in spending billions on thousands of users.

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          Rob Smith

          No, not really. Copper has electromagnetic limitations that just don't exist in the light waves that we send over fiber. It really isn't similar. I have worked in the industry for 37 years. There is absolutely nothing on the horizon to make fiber obsolete. Even wireless devices eventually transit over fiber optics.

          It is theoretically possible to transmit the traffic of all humanity over a single fiber optic strand.

          Until there is some kind of device that uses, say, quantum entanglement to communicate, fiber will be the best means to transmit data to and from fixed sites.

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            Rjosephpaquette

            My point is that there is always a ‘next’. “There is absolutely nothing on the horizon”…that you can think of (or you’d be Elon or Bill).

            My point, again running fiber to every single home, no matter how remote may not be the best use of tax dollars when EVERY technology eventually becomes obsolete.

            You are probably better equipped to tell me what advances will make fiber unnecessary in remote areas in the future?

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    Jaliranchr

    I live in one of those communities surrounded by fiber, yet we are stuck with DSL or wireless. The REA took up the challenge and fiber is being strung. They promised June hookups. Still waiting, but it will be worth it when it arrives. Frustrating, but seeing a light at the end of the tunnel helps the patience.

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