Alex Tabarrok points me today to a Washington Times story about rural broadband:
Residents in rural America are eager to access high-speed internet under a $42.5 billion federal modernization program, but not a single home or business has been connected to new broadband networks nearly three years after President Biden signed the funding into law, and no project will break ground until sometime next year.
....Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said the program’s goal of providing high-speed internet to most underserved areas will not be fully realized until 2030, nine years after its enactment.... “There hasn’t been a single shovel’s worth of dirt that has even been turned towards connecting people,” Mr. Carr said.
The Times portrays this as a problem caused by liberal demands in the law: union workers, climate change considerations, etc. But that's not really the story.
The BEAD program was authorized in late 2021 as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Act. But the feds only provide the money. All of the actual buildout is done by the states, so the first step was to use an FCC map to determine which areas were most underserved—something that obviously had nothing to do with liberal wish lists. Following that, state allocations were set in June 2023, and every state had submitted an application by the start of 2024. That was only six months ago.
Some states have been faster than others. Some allow cities to apply for funds, others keep it all at the state level. All of them have to come up with 25% matching funds. Nevertheless, in the past six months 15 states have been fully approved and every one of the others are very close. This too has nothing to do with liberal demands. Six months is just not a very long time when it comes to planning the disbursement of billion-dollar grants.
Bottom line: Disbursing $42 billion takes a while, especially when it's being funneled through all 50 states. You have to allocate the money fairly. You have to get plans from each state about how they're going to use the money. And finally the states have to actually begin digging holes and laying fiber. Along the way there will be the usual disagreements about what's acceptable and what's not, some along partisan lines and some just garden variety complaints from broadband providers. Overall, though, there's been nothing unusual about BEAD and it's rolling out pretty much on schedule.
Case in point, The Inflation Reduction Act was approved in August of 2022 and states are just now rolling out the pieces.
Although this is moving faster due to the disturbing prospect of an administration change in January - really lights a fire under everyone to get this moving.
And other than Vermont sneaking in there, nine of the top ten states per capita are going to use their broadband to stream Bannon's podcast from Jail, while we in California pay for the usual non pro rata chunk of it.
I don't really expect a thank you card, but a day without an f-u would be nice.
New Mexico has voted for the Democrat in the last four presidential elections. It has two Democrats for Senator. And the Governor is a Democrat.
Correction noted. Go New Mexico
Right! But you left out the three Democratic US Representatives. Out of a total of three.
I was on my phone. Figured I had more than enough evidence already 🙂
Unless one is in “waste anything but time” mode…
Rural people can go to hell. Why should we help those freaks?
A non-trivial number of them grow the food you eat.
And they all have the technology they need.
Modern farms and agricultural operations work far differently than those a few decades ago, primarily because of advancements in technology, including sensors, devices, machines, and information technology. Today’s agriculture routinely uses sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. These advanced devices and precision agriculture and robotic systems allow businesses to be more profitable, efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly.
They wield disproportionate power, from an electoral standpoint, due to the structure of the US Constitution? Also in-state gerrymandering?
"Alex Tabarrok points me today to a Washington Times story"
and that's all you need to know that the rest is going to be bullshit.
Isn't it a bit stupid to be running fiber at this point?
Starlink residential plans are USD 1400 / year. At that price, $42B would buy 30,000,000 house-years of Internet access and that is not even taking into account operating costs to run and maintain the network that we would install with that $42B if we run fiber.
In real life, when you buy in these volumes you get a huge discount.
Why the heck aren't we just signing a big ass contract with Elon Must to provide Internet to anyone who does not already have highspeed Internet access nationwide?
Yeah... I know... because that would not create union jobs so it would not produce more campaign volunteers for Democratic candidates, right?
The aggregate bandwidth of Starlink is how much at this point?
Less latency and signal delay. Also, not placing all telecommunications in the hands of one man whose sanity has increasingly come into question?
Plus, a nuke or two detonated from orbit could wipe out the whole magilla. Back to the stone age, when people had to send data through little glass strings. If they had them.
One or two nukes detonated in orbit will leave the glass fibers dark. The fibers themselves will be fine but the electronics lighting them up will be fried.
For those of us used to speed, Starlink is painful
The Republican-led Congress allowed the ACP funding to dry up. It is ironic if not hypocritical for outlets like the Washington Times to complain about how it's taking a long time for rural internet access to be built, even while they ignore all of the impoverished Americans who lost their internet access.