BEAD funding fight between private, public sectors joined

With the naming of former U.S. Federal Communications Commission nominee and staffer Gigi Sohn as the first executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, the battle between the public and private sectors over $42.5 billion in advanced telecommunications infrastructure funding has been joined.

The AAPB’s mission is to “build a diverse membership of public broadband networks from around the country, and advocate in support of municipal broadband and local choice at the federal, state, and local levels.” Sean Gonsalves of the Institute for Local Self Reliance’s Community Networks reports from the Broadband Communities Summit held in Houston this week where Sohn announced her new role after withdrawing as the Biden administration’s nominee to fill a vacant FCC seat amid strong opposition from telephone and cable companies:

When (Sohn) officially takes the reins at AAPB beginning in June, she said her top priorities would be to increase AAPB membership beyond its current “handful of members,” advocate for municipal broadband and other public entities to have access to the $42.5 billion in broadband deployment funds forthcoming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) – “at least on an equal basis as private providers” – and to tell the positive stories that will “make public broadband a thing that towns and communities want to have.”

Those companies also hope to snag some of the funds once they are allocated to the states as federal block grants later this year under National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Like the AAPB, they too will claim they deserve an equal shot at the funds. One recently urged Oregon state officials to adopt a “business model agnostic” stance in awarding subgrants, a talking point likely to be repeated in other states. But that could run into local opposition as states do their community and outreach and engagement as required by BEAD from residents and businesses that for years complained of redlining and poor service by the legacy providers.