After decades and a patchwork of grant programs, what’s next for U.S. advanced telecommunications infrastructure policy?

By the late 1980s and early 1990s when it became apparent internet protocol-based telecommunications would replace legacy analog voice and cable TV, the United States failed to put in place policies to ensure the timely modernization of its delivery infrastructure – twisted pair copper telephone and coaxial cable, respectively – to fiber optic lines. Instead of integrated, comprehensive policy, it developed a patchwork of grant programs to attempt to fill in holes in a giant Swiss cheese, crazy quilt pattern of fiber infrastructure construction by a mix of public, consumer cooperative and mostly private sector corporations.

That became a paper chase of “broadband mapping” designed sort grant eligible holes from the cheese, including controversy over what meets government quality standards for the cheese. While nominally intended to expand affordable access to advanced telecommunications – something that enjoys widespread support -- the process is an adversarial one prone to delay and controversy. Incumbent providers – typically investor owned – claim they already sell cheese where another entity insists there’s a hole, requesting grant funding to build fiber to fill it.

The competitive paper chase is posed to heat up considerably in 2023 as the federal and state governments determine how to allocate nearly $43 billion in grants earmarked for advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021.

Even after all that "once in a generation" money is spent, the nation will likely continue to come up short getting fiber to every doorstep without resolving the larger question of how is the infrastructure optimally owned and operated to ensure universal affordable access and uniform service level and reliability standards. Government owned regional advanced telecom authorities along with utility cooperatives are the best option since the short term, market segmented business models of investor owner/operators don’t lend themselves to attaining these. They are also better able to ensure ongoing financial support and stability without the need to generate profits for investors.

This is not to say there isn’t a role for investor-owned entities. There is plenty of work for them to design, build, operate and offer services over the fiber infrastructure just as is the case with other public works such as transportation infrastructure. But as history has shown with the nation’s fragmented Swiss cheese advanced telecommunications infrastructure, they can never place the public interest in ubiquitous, affordable access to modern infrastructure ahead of that of their shareholders and can only build fiber where it generates a relatively rapid return on investment. Telecom policymakers should act accordingly and appropriately assign the roles and players instead of the futile effort of sorting the “broadband” holes from the cheese.