When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Whip James Clyburn unveiled their plan for an $80 billion broadband buildout last Thursday, both emphasized the importance of the proposal in the broader fight against COVID-19.
“We’re talking about distance learning, we’re talking about telemedicine, we’re talking about people buying things in a way they hadn’t before,” said Pelosi. “And yet, it’s not available to everyone. So this is about fairness and equity in every way—access to care, access to credit, access to whatever opportunities come along in terms of testing, therapies, or vaccine.” Clyburn went further, tying the plan to the burgeoning national effort to trace the spread of the virus and allow children from rural or underserved areas to learn remotely in the fall. “I don’t see how you do effective tracing without broadband,” said Clyburn. “If we are going to have effective treatment, you got to have broadband.”
Less than two months ago, the chances of such a massive broadband package passing in a divided Congress was slim at best. But the spread of COVID-19 radically shifted the congressional calculus on spending, and it’s now possible the proposal will be folded into the Phase 4 coronavirus-relief package being debated on Capitol Hill.
It’s not clear, however, that Clyburn’s proposal will provide timely relief to rural and impoverished communities suffering from an absence of high-speed internet options during a pandemic. Building up broadband infrastructure from scratch is already a complicated and time-consuming endeavor. But there’s another, more immediate problem—the lack of accurate national maps showing which communities have access to high-speed internet.
Bad broadband maps have long bedeviled efforts by lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission to expand internet coverage to America’s most remote regions. But a law signed by President Trump several weeks after the start of the pandemic could further complicate the effort. The Broadband DATA Act, signed into law on March 23, requires the FCC to change the way it collects data on broadband coverage in order to produce more granular maps. But according to telecommunications experts, a provision in the bill also prevents any new funding appropriated by Congress from going to broadband infrastructure projects until the new maps can be deployed.
“There’s no way, under the Broadband DATA Act, that they can give out this money under the old maps,” said Gigi Sohn, a technology fellow at Georgetown Law School and a former FCC official. “The law is so clear that it applies to any future funding.”
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