Broadband
From CHIPS to BEAD, Biden’s politics infected federal spending
By James Erwin President Biden’s team were eager to popularize “Bidenomics” when they saw marginal improvements in inflation, but it is more likely the term will become a by-word for politicized slush funds. There will be manifold retrospectives on the Biden Administration in due course. Most of…
House Oversight Sheds Light on Biden-Harris Administration’s Broadband Deployment Failures
By Lawson Faulkner On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing titled “A Legacy of Incompetence: Consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Policy Failures.” During the hearing, lawmakers took aim at the disastrous mismanagement of the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD)…
The Problem(s) with Poles
By James Erwin If you want to make any telecom expert’s fingers curl, mention pole attachments. It is an incredibly niche policy area, but exorbitant pole attachment fees and burdensome terms from municipally-owned poles could undermine federal broadband deployment efforts, possibly wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. If Congress…
FCC Pushing for Fee Increase for 2025 Budget
By Jason Lee This week, the FCC publishes its 2025 budget estimates for its funding from Congress. In its budget breakdown, the FCC plans to have a base increase of $30,000,000 in 2025. This is a massive increase over the Commission’s $2,450,000 base increase in…
The Mullin USF Bill Is Worse Than We Thought
By James Erwin Last week, we wrote about the push by some Republicans require edge providers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF) to help cover its shortfalls. Now that a bill has been introduced by Senators Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), we realize…
New Taxes On Tech Companies Won’t Fix USF
By James Erwin The Universal Service Fund (USF) is in trouble and has been for some time. Its current funding mechanism does not raise enough revenue to consistently support the outlays demanded by the programs it funds, and reform is badly needed. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, some in…
What’s the Problem with Usage-Based Billing?
By James Erwin Usage-based billing, or UBB for short, is common practice across most industries. You get billed for the amount of electricity you use at home, the amount of gas burned to heat your apartment, and even the number of hours a lawyer works for you. The…
Two Cheers for the BEAD Allocations
It’s finally here. On Monday, more than eighteen months after President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the administration has at last released each state’s broadband grant allocations. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program will distribute $42.5 billion to states to expand broadband to…
Spectrum is More Important than Middle Mile
By James Erwin It has been 30 years since Congress granted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to auction radiofrequency spectrum for commercial use, and Congress has carelessly allowed auction authority to lapse. Making matters worse, Congress’s failure to reach an agreement is due to the Department…
Waste Watch: Nepotism and Mismanagement Create Costly Consequences for KentuckyWired
Waste Watch dives into some of the most egregious, examples of government waste that politicians are leaving for future generations of American taxpayers to clean up. The topic of the Second Edition of Digital Liberty’s Waste Watch is the haywire management of KentuckyWired. KentuckyWired is a statewide municipal broadband project that…