In 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. It promised that all Americans would have equal access to reliable, high-speed broadband services without discrimination. This, as I’ll soon explain, is a myth. Once you leave the bigger cities and their prosperous suburbs, your broadband choices are a complete crapshoot.
The infrastructure law was already under attack. Recently, the Wall Street Journal editorialized:
The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved” mostly rural communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. The Administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.
Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.
Take how the Administration is forcing providers to subsidize service for low-income customers. Commerce required that Virginia revise its plan, so bidders had to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is rate regulation. (Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday October 5-6, 2024.
I just left one of prosperous suburbs of Washington, DC where I had ample broadband choices, for the lush green grass and Oak trees of St. Simons Island, GA. SSI as it’s called by its natives is also prosperous but it’s an unusual location. Although, close by is the small city of Brunswick, SSI can only be reached (other by boat) by transversing a four-mile causeway over marsh and water. Until now, the only broadband provider has been Xfinity. Unfortunately, Xfinity customer service cares little about their customers.
When I left Virginia 10 days ago, the Xfinity rep there told me he could not guarantee service in my new location because the company only cared about their D.C customers, as that’s where they’re located. I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t! After a week of ordering Internet and cable service we still can’t get it to work due to a reported outage. Customer service cannot tell us if when or if it will be working, even though our neighbors have working Xfinity Internet.
And even though SSI is relatively wealthy, it is hard to reach, and the small cities around Southeast Georgia are relatively poor with little incentive for new providers to serve them. Thus, in my opinion, there are at least two better ways the money in the infrastructure law could have been used, and SSI is a perfect example.
The money in the law could have been allocated to providers to serve the communities they choose. I just ordered AT&T Air, a wireless Internet service using AT&T’s cell towers. The company just recently began serving the island and my location. With a new storm coming Thursday, we’ll see if it works.
Private company funds are also starting to serve Southeast Georgia. Live Oak is laying fiber in Brunswick and SSI to offer fiber-to-the-home broadband service. It is a brand-new company dedicated to helping poorly served communities and it has taken to federal fund. Created in 2022, it’s already serving thousands of customers (just not me, of course!).
My point of this piece is not to complain but to finally recognize that outside the big metro bubble I was in, many real-world people continue to have connectivity issues, and the infrastructure law hasn’t helped. Many we should have predicted it in 2021.
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