“There has never been anything like the pandemic to create a national teaching moment that we cannot have equal economic and educational opportunity unless all Americans and all regions, from urban to rural America, have access to high-speed affordable internet service,” Gene Sperling, a senior advisor to Biden, told reporters.
Virginia will get $219.8 million, with $176.7 million going to Louisiana, $136.3 million to West Virginia and $50 million to New Hampshire. Other states must send the Treasury Department by Sept. 24 their plans by "demonstrating how funding could fill critical needs," AP reports.
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the money will make a “tremendous dent” in the broadband deployment needed in his rural state, AP reports. The Federal Communications Commission estimates there are more than 250,000 of the fewer than 2 million people in West Virginia lack broadband access, and Manchin said even more people are likely unconnected.
“We can’t help folks recover from the pandemic or encourage new economic development in areas like West Virginia if we don’t have connectivity — it’s that simple,” said Manchin, a former governor.
"The first wave of federal broadband funding to states, territories and tribal governments requires that the service providers building out their networks offer discounts to customers and provide service at download and upload speeds of at least 100 megabytes per second," AP reports. "Providers must participate in the FCC’s new Affordable Connectivity Program," which makes households with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty threshold eligible for discounts of up to $30 per month, or up to $75 a month on tribal lands.
"The money isn’t the only recent federal allocation for broadband — billions more were approved as part of the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law," AP notes. "And more than 100 federal programs — administered by 15 agencies — already have some capacity to expand internet access." The number of programs “has led to a fragmented, overlapping patchwork of funding,” a Government Accountability Office report said last month.
“I’m not sure we fully used all our federal dollars well,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., noting that reliable internet access is a promise the government began making in the 1990s. “Candidly, in our country, we’ve done not a very good job of making that a reality.” He said federal efforts in the last 30 years have been “kind of hamstrung,” with some networks being partially built. "Faulty FCC maps that relied on self-reporting by the companies overstated coverage and hindered efforts to subsidize internet service in underserved rural areas," AP reports.
“I’m not sure we fully used all our federal dollars well,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., noting that reliable internet access is a promise the government began making in the 1990s. “Candidly, in our country, we’ve done not a very good job of making that a reality.” He said federal efforts in the last 30 years have been “kind of hamstrung,” with some networks being partially built. "Faulty FCC maps that relied on self-reporting by the companies overstated coverage and hindered efforts to subsidize internet service in underserved rural areas," AP reports.
The FCC is required to issue new broadband maps before the National Telecommunications and Information Administration can allocate money from the new infrastructure bill, but legislators and broadband stakeholders "disagree on whether third-party maps should be used to supplement FCC’s maps," reports Cara Smith of Inside Health Policy. The first drafts of the maps are not expected until fall, Smith reports from a June 9 hearing at which "Lawmakers expressed renewed distrust in the FCC’s and NTIA’s ability to create accurate broadband maps and distribute funding properly to unserved and underserved communities."
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