Enabling legislation of Biden administration’s infrastructure plan should ensure fiber built to nearly every American home

The advanced telecommunications infrastructure component of the Biden administration’s proposed American Jobs Plan (AJP) will be more clearly fleshed out when it is drafted into legislation. For now, it’s fine for the AJP to broadly outline a goal of building “future proof” infrastructure. But this is a subjective term, leaving it open to debate and the introduction of present bias as the language is negotiated. The draft legislation should instead definitively establish a fiber to the home infrastructure standard.

The AJP proposes to build infrastructure to “unserved and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage.” The enabling legislation should avoid the use of “unserved and underserved areas” as well as “broadband” – terms that have sparked years of protracted debate over how they are defined as infrastructure deficits grew. Instead, it should ensure fiber is built to 100 percent of American homes over the near term to replace outdated copper telephone lines, with the exception of homes located in extremely remote areas of the nation.