Washington Examiner Oped: Biden's FCC is disrupting broadband advancement

The Biden administration has been inundating the public with commentary regarding its infrastructure plan. But it's hard to discern what the administration's plan actually involves, especially when it comes to broadband strategy.

For one, there is no feasible way to accomplish the president's goal of providing fiber optic broadband to every person in the United States, even with $100 billion in the coffer. Nor are we any closer to knowing who will take the helm at the Federal Communications Commission, which has placed important infrastructure policy promulgated during the Trump administration in a precarious state. But while the Biden administration fumbles over itself, China continues to make significant gains in broadband deployment. The administration needs to keep its focus and be tougher on China by continuing down the path laid out by the FCC under former Chairman Ajit Pai.

The challenges are real.

For one, the Biden administration's plan does almost nothing to close the digital divide. It even limits the technologies that carriers can use to promote our broadband networks to fiber-only strategies. Moreover, it provides an amount of money that is woefully low to accomplish its stated goal of providing every person with fiber-based internet. For example, a 1-mile build to build 13 homes has a total project cost of $20,000 plus $600 for each home connected to the service. With these numbers, the funds would be nearly exhausted by the time the Biden administration lights up Delaware.

During the Trump administration, we had one of the most aggressive broadband infrastructure plans in recent history. The Trump administration took an "all of the above" approach to promote our broadband networks. It pursued a series of subsidy programs to build out to rural areas, while Pai’s FCC cleared a record amount of spectrum bands and held auctions to enhance broadband networks. To increase competition, Pai's FCC lowered regulatory burdens for broadband infrastructure so that a diverse number of companies, big and small, using a variety of technologies, including wireless, fiber, and satellite, could participate in the market. The Trump administration took this route because it realized, unlike the Biden administration, that the best way for the government to help was to stand back and not bridle innovative deployment strategies.

Funny thing, the Trump administration's plan was working.

The administration provided the private sector with the tools it needed to promote our broadband infrastructure. The results showed. From 2010 to 2020, people with access to broadband internet increased from an estimated 74.5% to 93.5%. In terms of broadband speeds, we were making significant strides compared to that of our competitors. For instance, a study conducted by Global Wireless Solutions released network performance testing from Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida, where it found that all three of the nation's carriers averaged more than 1 gigabit per second on their respective 5G networks. In layman's terms, this means that we have passed light speed and are now entering into ludicrous speed.

All these essential reforms are now in jeopardy because President Joe Biden has allowed the FCC to take a lackadaisical approach on key court cases. Citing a lack of agency leadership, FCC's interim chairwoman continues to hold up cases at the circuit court level involving necessary broadband infrastructure reforms. This puts some of the infrastructure policies outlined above in regulatory and legal limbo. Also, this regulatory ambiguity can only help China by causing unnecessary delays in U.S. carrier deployment due to the FCC muddying the legal landscape.

While the Biden administration remains asleep at the wheel, Chinese telecom giant Huawei continues to build out over half of the 140 commercial 5G networks in 59 countries, and it is picking up speed. The threat from China in the broadband space is genuine and quite alarming — except, that is, for the Biden team.

Joel Thayer is an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who consults on tech and telecommunications policy issues.

Link to Washington Examiner Page: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/bidens-fcc-is-disrupting-broadband-advancement