Broadband

ITIF’s spring seminar course explores core emerging technologies and issues that are reshaping our world and, in the process, creating public policy challenges and opportunities. The course is open to congressional and federal staff only.

Join ITIF for a panel discussion featuring submarine cable owners and operators as they delve into the past, present, and future of this essential industry. Learn about the technological advances, policy challenges, and global implications shaping the world beneath the waves.

The United States has spent decades and billions of dollars to achieve universal broadband access. Yet the digital divide continues because many Americans still face barriers to affordability or lag in digital literacy. It’s time for a bold rethinking of broadband policy to match today’s realities.

Watch now for a virtual panel discussion with technology policy experts who highlighted and critiqued the most counterproductive tech policies of the past year, and considered how the incoming administration and Congress can turn the page.

The administration should reform the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to stop favoring overly expensive fiber when LEO satellites could do the same job for less. Taking a technology-neutral approach to broadband deployment would save money that could be better spent on other causes of the digital divide.

Congress should create a more targeted and durable Affordable Connectivity Program by aligning funding priorities with the remaining causes of the digital divide. By prioritizing affordability rather than deployment, the new program can connect low-income households without new federal spending.

Nevada’s broadband plan wastes millions on overpriced fiber projects, ignoring cost-effective solutions like satellite service and neglecting affordability—the real driver of the digital divide.

In most cases, local governments have neither the competence nor the economies of scale to deliver broadband as well as private ISPs. So, favoring government-owned networks wastes societal resources, creates unfair competition, and is frequently unsustainable in the long run.

Private ISPs have invested the equivalent of 2 BEAD programs every year since the BEAD statute was enacted.

To the extent that the Commission is worried about whether data caps are too low, it should change its policies that have disincentivized broadband investment so consumers can benefit from increases in overall broadband network capacity.