How $65 Billion for Broadband Infrastructure Could Fall Short

And Brake has issues with the $100 million minimum that each state is slated to receive for high-speed internet. He said that smaller, denser states like Connecticut may not need that much money to provide complete coverage to its citizens.

“To get something through the Senate, that’s kind of the price of doing business,” said Brake. “Everyone’s got to get something.”

Still, Brake said the Senate’s infrastructure deal is a marked improvement from recent proposals like the BRIDGE Act, which would’ve ignored the lack of broadband maps and divvied up federal funds through imprecise metrics like raw population and the percentage of rural or low-income citizens.

“I think it could be potentially more efficient if this was sort of run through a single process within the federal government,” Brake said. “[But] it’s improved a lot in this new version.”