Main Streets where everyone knows your name, tight-knit communities that come together to share and solve problems, and backroads that wind through crop fields as far as the eye can see.
These are only a few examples of what made my experience growing up in small-town Iowa – and all those in rural communities across the country – such a special one. Unfortunately, more and more of our rural friends feel left behind and disconnected from a shared future of progress with their suburban and urban neighbors.
Revitalizing rural America means ensuring every corner of our nation can access reliable, high-speed broadband internet. But federal policymakers are expected to implement sweeping new rules that threaten rural broadband progress and continue to leave millions of citizens stranded without reliable connectivity.
More than 7 million homes and small businesses still need access to broadband connectivity, most of which are located in rural, hard-to-reach regions. The lack of connectivity in rural America has profound implications for education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. Clay County, West Virginia, is representative of these areas, where nearly 1 in 3 residents still lack broadband access. These hard-working Americans should not have to pause their educational, economic, or personal endeavors because they lack internet access.
The over $42 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment federal funding being distributed across the country provides us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to connect unserved rural America and give communities like Clay County the tools they need to thrive in the digital age.
Rural America can only benefit if we ensure our leaders manage these investments responsibly and effectively. That means working to maximize the impact of every broadband dollar invested by proactively removing barriers to deployment. From the ruggedness of the Appalachian Mountains to the vastness of the Great Plains, our country has no shortage of tough-to-build-in areas that challenge internet service providers every day. The last thing they need is additional obstacles to deployment, such as heavy-handed regulation that threatens rural broadband progress.
And yet, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to do just that later this month when it is expected to vote on and pass excessive, and frankly unneeded, net neutrality rules.
These rules will force outdated 1930s utility regulations onto our 21st-century internet, placing it into the same category as water and electricity. But can we afford to allow our dynamic internet infrastructure to go the same way as our aging, underinvested national water and electricity infrastructure?
Unlike utilities, the internet has flourished without these regulations for decades. ISPs have invested more than $2.1 trillion in building, maintaining, and upgrading the national communications infrastructure since 1996 – with billions more to complement the infusion of BEAD funds. Unnecessary regulatory interference from Washington will introduce uncertainty for ISPs and discourage private broadband investments.
This isn’t conjecture – we already have proof. The FCC imposed similar net neutrality rules between 2015 and 2017, which resulted in more than $30 billion in forgone private investments. These private investments are critical to complement BEAD funding if we are serious about connecting every pocket of rural America.
We can transform our nation’s rural communities with the upcoming influx of broadband investments. We cannot allow ill-advised regulation to stand in the way.
