Joe Kane

Rather than fixating on Build America Buy America Act (BABA) mandates at the expense of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program’s more central goals, Office of Management and Budget should adopt guidance that recognizes the unique situation of broadband components and allows BABA mandates adapted to provide waivers as necessary to connect Americans to high-speed broadband as soon as possible.

Interrelated gaps and failures in the process and policies used to efficiently allocate spectrum demand comprehensive reform. To prevent future failures, policymakers must improve device performance, increase data gathering and sharing, and clarify the spectrum allocation process.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act could be the biggest step toward closing the geographic digital divide ever. The Commission should keep its eye on that goal and not give in to calls to stray from the statutory text to claim sweeping new power over broadband deployment. Here, the statutory text unambiguously permits only a disparate-treatment definition of digital discrimination. Independently and in the alternative, the Commission must closely scrutinize claims based on disparate impact claims to ensure that the threat of litigation does not perversely delay and diminish efforts to connect all Americans.

The federal government controls large swaths of the electromagnetic spectrum, but the current system for managing it lacks effective ways to incentivize agencies to use it efficiently. Congress and the Biden administration should promote good stewardship of spectrum and better enable it to power both federal missions and the commercial wireless ecosystem.

Critics argue U.S. broadband speeds are slow and the country’s broadband system overall is poor, but U.S. speeds actually are fast and outpace everyday demands. Focusing too much attention on speed simply diverts resources that otherwise could be used to close the digital divide.

Making productive use of spectrum is central to the FCC’s purpose and goals. It has an opportunity to increase the productivity of the 60-64 GHz band by permitting airborne radar devices to operate near ground level. Specifically, it should seek a technical arrangement that permits the maximum commercial use of this band while also protecting the federal interest in the Earth Exploration Satellite Service.

Closing the digital divide takes money, and the federal government has lots of it, but sinking $45 billion into remote fiber optic cables would be a waste of money that will leave more pressing broadband priorities underfunded.

In absolute terms, the United States is among the world’s leaders in deploying fast broadband, and it does so at competitive prices. But there is room for improvement on broadband adoption.

Policymakers in some nations want edge companies such as Netflix to pay a larger share of broadband infrastructure costs. These “sending-party-pays” policies would harm Internet users, disproportionately tax U.S. tech companies, and fail to deliver infrastructure improvements.

Many attempts to increase the flexibility of wireless spectrum rights meet objections that the method of reallocation will result in a windfall for corporate license holders. Far from being objectionable, however, allowing windfalls in spectrum reallocation creates virtuous incentives.

The recent dramatic sea change in broadband funding must come with a shift in priorities as policymakers continue efforts to close the digital divide.

The administration’s promise of substantially lower prices through more competition takes a shortsighted and localized view of broadband competition that is more calculated to score political points against unpopular corporations than to improve everyday Americans’ broadband service.

Join ITIF and Eno for a discussion on what the spectrum allocation process looks like, where it falters, and how to reform spectrum allocation to promote long-term safety and productivity. Food and beverages will be provided to all in-person attendees.

Joe Kane joins a panel speaking on what is being done to ensure spectrum is put to its best and highest use, and if there is enough spectrum to keep pace with demand and innovation.

Joe Kane, Director of Broadband and Spectrum Policy at ITIF, moderated a discussion on the FCC’s ongoing efforts to effectuate this portion of the statute and how policymakers can best achieve the goal of equitable broadband deployment.

Watch the discussion surrounding the potential climate tech applications of 5G and what is needed going forward to help ensure that this critical infrastructure can facilitate the low-carbon transition.

View ITIF's event that explored how state-broadband funding is progressing, and how stakeholders are working to take advantage of the opportunities and address the challenges that come with it.