Attack on DEI and Changes for BEAD Seen Causing Confusion in the States
The Donald Trump administration’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs is misguided and won’t be sustained long term, consultant Deborah Lathen said Wednesday at a Broadband Breakfast webinar. Other speakers said it could take years to convince people about the importance of broadband in areas that are just being connected while confusion reigns on the future of the BEAD program.
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DEI “isn’t something to help Black people and Indians and everybody else. This is for all of America,” said Lathen, former chief of the FCC Cable Services Bureau. “Rural America encompasses people of all races.” She said her hope lies with the states to keep diversity programs alive, especially as part of broadband deployment. “Equity” is now “a bad word,” she said.
“We’re at a crossroads right now, with things going on in Washington, but I put my faith in the states,” Lathen continued. She doesn’t expect other states to follow the example of Texas and reject $1 billion in BEAD money that would fund a low-cost broadband service option (see 2502070063). “I hope that Texas is just an outlier.” More Americans are online, “but there is still a lot of work to be done.” Even when broadband is free, some people won’t connect, she said. “We have to get to those people.”
Lathen said proposed BEAD rules changes could mean that money will flow to the states more slowly than expected. “We’re now in a state of flux because the rules are going to change.”
States are continuing to move forward amid confusion from Washington on the future of BEAD, said Jake Varn, associate manager of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ broadband access initiative. “The conversation in D.C. continues to swirl” on aligning the program with the new administration’s priorities, he said. “Nothing has been decided,” and “states are continuing to run their BEAD programs.”
Three states have selected providers under the BEAD program and are awaiting final approval, while eight others have closed their application windows, Varn noted. Other states are soliciting bids. “There’s tremendous work happening right now, even though there is a great deal of uncertainty” at the federal level. “Affordability remains a tremendous concern,” and adoption “is an ever-evolving challenge."
Broadband initiatives require the public to understand the importance of being connected, said Gary Wood, CEO of the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, which is building out fiber. “It’s going to take a while,” he said. When power lines were first built in rural areas in the 1930s, the “take rate” was about 40%, he noted. It took years “to tell people about the advantages of electricity in homes, teach them how to use it.” By the mid-1940s, almost everyone was connected to the power grid, he said.
Brian Vo, chief investment officer at the nonprofit Connect Humanity, said that if the world goes into lockdown tomorrow, as it did five years ago, connectivity is only “incrementally” better than it was in 2020. Vo cautioned against putting too much trust in BEAD, which “is going to be a great infusion” of money “for now to close as much of the divide as we can,” but “what comes in five years, 10 years, 20 years?” He added, “Infrastructure is a forever problem.”
Rory Conaway, Wi-Fiber's chief technology officer, said Triad Wireless, an ISP since purchased by Wi-Fiber, saw a 400% increase in internet usage in the 30 days following the start of the COVID-19 lockdown. “We’re seeing that same usage, and even higher today.” While fiber is being deployed everywhere, people are still looking for the connections offered by wireless ISPs, he said.
One lesson is that the speed of the connection doesn’t seem to be consumers' biggest demand, Conaway said. Instead, they want consistency and service availability when they need it. One problem with fiber is that when it’s damaged, it can take a day or more to repair, he added.
“We’ve made inroads,” Wood said, noting that there’s a larger number of people defined today as unserved only because the requirements are higher for what constitutes broadband -- defined since last year as 100 Mbps for downloads and 20 Mbps for uploads, compared with the 25/3 Mbps benchmark set by the FCC in 2015.
Wood said his co-op has built out broadband for about 70% of its service territory, and “other areas have new providers who have stepped in and started.” Progress has been slow because deployment “takes time as well as capital,” he said. “We’re making progress -- we’re not done.”