Senators Collins re-introduces American Broadband Buildout Act to benefit internet infrastructure in rural communities

On the Senate floor this week, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the American Broadband Buildout Act of 2021. This bill would create a loan matching program to fund projects that bridge the “digital divide” in America’s rural locales. Up to $15 billion in matching grants would be available for state entities to build the last stretches of infrastructure needed to bring internet to rural Americans.

The bill contains five components emphasized by Collins and Rosen’s press statements. It would: 

(1) Require that loans fund “unserved” areas that are below the FCC’s internet speed standard (more on that later);

(2) Require partnerships between public and private entities in funding and project development;

(3) Require project designs to include capacity for increased broadband speeds in the future as technology accelerates;

(4) Require funds for broadband public service campaigns; and

(5) Require the FCC to prioritize areas that lack broadband access and subscribers.

Worthy of note, this is not the bills first form. In 2019, a 2020 version of the ABBA was introduced by Collins and former Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) proposing $5 billion in loan matching; unfortunately, as is frequently the case, the bill died in committee.

Reading this announcement, I thought of a profile on rural Americans struggling with broadband access I read a few nights prior. Americans from rural Ohio and Kentucky lamented the difficulty of transporting their urban and suburban careers to their hometowns for remote work.

These rural communities do not have enough economic opportunity for service providers. The American Broadband Buildout Act seeks to incentivize communities like Barkley Hughes’ hometown of Tolu, Kentucky. Barkley had to contact AT&T directly for distribution boxes and fiber optic cables he pays for with a neighbor. Their services, 50 megabits per second download and uploads (50/50 Mbps), cost each neighbor $604 monthly. These distribution boxes could extend to others in the area with proper infrastructure, but right now the incentives for these developments do not exist for providers.

Hughes echoed this frustration:

It’s aggravating because you know what’s in here, and you know internet to every home in this community could come right through this box, but nothing happens. It’s frustrating.

In related broadband news this week, Senators Bennet (D-CO), Manchin (D-WV), King (I-ME), and Portman (R-OH) co-authored a letter to the FCC and other government leaders requesting a new standard for internet speeds. The letter called for 100 megabits per second download and upload (100/100 Mbps) speeds as a federal standard. The letter specifically emphasized rural community’s divide in broadband access.

There is no reason federal funding to rural areas should not support the type of speeds used by households in typically well-served urban and suburban areas.

Currently, the FCC estimates that 14.5 million Americans lack access to broadband internet and defines high-speed internet as 25/3 Mbps. These speeds do not reflect the capacity needed for modern American families conducting school, work, and entertainment simultaneously on one internet connection every day. If the FCC updated broadband benchmarks, bills like the American Broadband Buildout Act would suddenly have more teeth. 

The bill is still in its infancy and far from passing, but it shows more broadly a call to action for closing the “digital divide” in rural America. There has been significant writing already on this blog about rural broadband access: here, here, and here.