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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

Biden’s Broadband Blowout Is a Waste

Rather than admit the $42.5 billion was unneeded, the administration has tried to rationalize the spending.

harold_furchtgott_roth
harold_furchtgott_roth
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the Economics of the Internet
Power lines owned by Dominion Energy are seen in Culpeper, Virginia, on July 18, 2022. (Zack Wajsgras via Getty Images)
Caption
Power lines owned by Dominion Energy are seen in Culpeper, Virginia, on July 18, 2022. (Zack Wajsgras via Getty Images)

The Broadband Rollout Fiasco” (Review & Outlook, Oct. 5) is real. Few American households live in areas without access to broadband in the first place. In its 2021 Broadband Deployment Report, the Federal Communications Commission found that 99.4% of the U.S. population in 2019 lived in areas that met the FCC’s broadband definition for either fixed or mobile services. The remaining 0.6%, roughly 770,000 households, who lacked access to broadband were mostly in the rural West or Alaska.

The 2021 infrastructure law allocated $42.5 billion to areas “unserved” by broadband. That is more than $55,000 for each unserved household in 2019. Many would have chosen a check for $50,000 rather than a new government service.

Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.

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