Senators Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) and Peter Welch (D-Vermont) have introduced a new bill that would fund USDA ReConnect grants with $650 million annually through 2030. It seems probable that, if passed, this would be the only federal grant program for the foreseeable future.
The requirements listed in the bill are pretty basic and reminiscent of prior rounds of ReConnect:
- The funding can only be used in rural areas.
- At least 75% of households in a grant area must be unable to buy broadband of at least 100/20 Mbps. Grants applicants will get priority if 90% of locations don’t meet that speed.
- Constructed networks must provide speeds of at least symmetrical 100 Mbps.
- The money can be awarded as grants, loans, or grant/loan combinations.
- Applicants must make a 25% match, but this can be waived.
- Grantees have five years to construct the network.
As I wrote recently, I believe there will still be many millions of locations left behind after the BEAD grants. But there are a few issues that will stop the proposed new ReConnect grants if not remedied:
- If satellite is considered when looking at existing broadband coverage, then every place in the U.S. will be considered to have adequate broadband. The last round of ReConnect allowed applicants to disregard locations where the only fast broadband came from satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless. Without a similar exclusion, there will be no chance of creating a ReConnect grant serving area.
- I believe there are many millions of locations where an ISP claims the capability to provide 100/20 Mbps in the FCC mapping data, but delivers slower speeds. Applicants need to have some reasonable way to challenge exaggerated FCC map data. In the last round of ReConnect, USDA largely accepted the FCC maps as gospel.
- The requirement to propose service areas where at least 75% of locations don’t have fast broadband is based on an assumption that there are still entire neighborhoods that don’t have good broadband. The reality on the ground is that most places are a jumble of served and unserved locations mixed across the geography. The only way the 75% rule can be realistically met is if ISPs can cobble together a dozen little pockets of folks with poor broadband into a single grant application. USDA theoretically allows that, but practically, they have made this difficult. This will be totally impossible if USDA sticks with looking at broadband coverage at the hexagon level instead of at individual homes.
It would be very beneficial for USDA if the proposed bill gives the agency the authority to put together study areas that ignore satellite and that provide a reasonable way for applicants to ignore faulty FCC maps. I fear that, without that specific guidance in the new Bill, there is a decent chance that USDA will find itself paralyzed and unable to find grants that can work.
It’s not hard to picture the three broadband arms of the government at odds with each other in the near future concerning the definition of broadband. NTIA won’t want to see ReConnect used to ‘overbuild’ areas where BEAD awarded grants to satellite. It’s easy to imagine the FCC defending the broadband maps and not making it easy for USDA to ignore exaggerated speed claims.
I see this bill as a positive move. It’s bipartisan, which has normally been the case for rural broadband policy. But there are some real challenges to make this work, and if the legislation is the only guiding document for the USDA, I’m not sure it is enough to make a viable future ReConnect program.
I’ll just throw in my 2 cents yet again.
Build the freeways, not the driveways. There are 1000 to 1 of us guys that can build driveways (the last mile / half mile etc etc) but we’re hampered by a lack of freeways ( big pipes to general areas ).
I’m paying thousands of dollars a month I wouldn’t need to pay simply because there is only 1 carrier in my entire area that has enough bandwidth to support our Wisp. The last mile stuff is easy, I can connect the unconnected and give WiFi to every donkey in every pasture on my own dime, turning a profit the whole time, and with redundancy’s that has my decade long uptime record beating many wired last mile services. It’s literally beyond impossible for me to build bigger pipes into my area.
I maintain around 150 broadcast tower sites, with a crew of 5 people. Do you know what my worst fear / nightmare situation is? Losing my upstream pipes. It happens way to often, numerous times a year. For every 1 minute that a few clients are down on my Fixed Wireless ISP I probably have 100 minutes where an entire segment of our network is crippled because of an upstream outage.
I wish somehow this message could find the people that make a difference.
And to add to this a bit. Any money spent on bigger pipes into my area would not be wasted at all if someday it fed a fiber network. That fiber network is going to have the same trouble I’m having. It will need a big pipe to feed it, one that isn’t here right now. If the government wants to use it’s money wisely ( haha I should just stop there ) then build the freeways now and stand aside.
Yes, part and parcel of the infrastructure crisis. Spawned by misguided public policy goal of “broadband” versus infrastructure.
https://eldotelecom.blogspot.com/2024/05/utility-coop-exec-industry-association.html
This bill is nothing but more BS politics. The Senators probably know that they can’t get the money, the infighting will kill the program anyway, and they would have to be dumber than usual to not know that the US is “covered” by expensive and somewhat unreliable internet service.
This is nothing more than a feel good see what we tried to do it is not our fault bill so that they can go home to wave their flag.
Cary: Indeed U.S. telecom policy went down the BS path by focusing on “broadband” throughput versus modernizing and analog metallic delivery infrastructure to fiber. Defining “broadband” and where it’s available creates tons of opportunity to pile on the bull.
100%
We’re STILL not building infrastructure. We’re up against ftth overbuilds that on day 1 are under-delivering. It only goes downhill from here.
Lack of infrastructure and/or lack of access to it. Big carriers crossing entire counties or large parts of states on the public ROW without ever having an access point to sell out of ‘feels’ wrong. Those are public properties and the idea of the ROW was to allow private companies to provider services using these public resources without having the burden of thousands of easements etc. I really think there should be an exchange of services. ie, these companies should have the option to pay per foot for access to the ROW and get that discounted to zero for selling at some near-DC/IX rates along that path.
Yes, lots of transmission and delivery infrastructure fiefdoms that because they tend toward monopoly can call the connections and the rates for them. This is illustrated in those so-called “broadband maps” that look like crazy quilt maps of feudal kingdoms of the middle ages. They naturally resist interlopers — “overbuilders” and want regulatory moats to keep them out.