President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Monday his administration’s plan to distribute billions of dollars appropriated by Congress to bring Internet access to every home and small business in the United States.
Comparing the push for universal connectivity to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, when the federal government installed electric utility lines that lighted rural areas across the United States, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients said that high-speed Internet Access to electricity is as essential to daily life.
“We all know how difficult life can be when there’s a power outage after a storm or for other reasons,” Zients said in a call with reporters to preview the announcement on Friday. “For millions of Americans, especially in rural communities, the internet has shut down a lot. Sometimes it is not even accessible.
The amount each state, territory and Washington, D.C. receives from the $42.5 billion program depends primarily on the number of unserved locations in each jurisdiction, or locations with at least 25 megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload internet. Speed is lacking. , Download speed includes retrieving information from the Internet, including streaming movies and TV. Upload speed determines how fast information travels from a computer to the Internet, such as sending email or publishing photos online.
More than 7% of the country falls in the deprived category, according to maps prepared recently by the Federal Communications Commission to chart the course for the massive undertaking.
Congress approved the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, or BEAD, along with several other internet expansion initiatives through an infrastructure bill signed by a Democratic president in 2021.
Earlier this month, the Commerce Department announced the winners of Middle Mile grants, which will fund projects that will build the middle part of the infrastructure needed to extend Internet access to every corner of the country.
States will have until the end of the year to submit preliminary proposals outlining how they plan to use the money, which will not be distributed until those plans are approved. Once the Commerce Department signs off on those plans, states can begin awarding grants to telecom companies, electric cooperatives and other broadband providers to build infrastructure that connects homes and small businesses to the Internet.
Under program rules, states are required to prioritize connecting low-served areas, or those without access to internet speeds of 100 Mbps/20 Mbps, and primarily unserved areas before expanding service to community anchor institutions such as schools and libraries Needed
The reliance on FCC data for the distribution of the country’s largest ever federal investment has been somewhat controversial. Members of Congress pressed FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel about inaccuracies she said would negatively impact allocations, especially to rural states, and about the short timeline for correcting inconsistencies in the first version of the state broadband official map. I was worried.
The second version of the map, which was released in late May and used for allocations, reflects the net addition of 1 million locations, updated data from Internet service providers and the results of more than 3 million public challenges, Rosenworcel said. , which in the past has been critical of how the FCC’s maps were developed, it said in a May statement.
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Harzai, who reports from Los Angeles, is a core member of The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.
