Recent announcements by state and federal governments lavishing millions of dollars on Ohio for expansion of broadband internet may give some the impression the buckeye state will soon seal the deal on high-speed online access for all residents.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, the $5 million in federal Department of Agriculture rural broadband loans and grants plus an additional $793 million from Broadband Ohio, both announced this summer, will expand service to unserved and underserved areas of the state and help close the digital divide. But don’t expect any substantial narrowing of that gap anytime too soon.
Take, for example, that $5 million from the USDA.
“This Rural Development investment will be used to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to provide high-speed internet. This network will benefit 38 people and four farms in Seneca, Crawford and Wyandot counties in Ohio,” the USDA said.
Do the math on that award, and the price tag soars to a whopping $132,000 for each individual connected.
Clearly then, these new funds are just a drop in the bucket compared with what’s really needed to finish the herculean task of blanketing every nook and cranny of Ohio with effective internet service.
Equally clear, however, is that our state’s farmers and rural residents cannot be treated as second-class citizens with no lane of their own on the information superhighway. As U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack correctly points out, broadband service no longer is a luxury but instead is a crucial necessity in the lives of virtually all Americans. Patience and adequate funding to complete the task therefore will be key if the United States hopes to come close to reaching President Joe Biden’s lofty goal of providing broadband access to each and every American by 2030. Seven years is not a long time from now when considering the gargantuan nature of the work and expense that lie ahead.
Unfortunately, 22.3% of Americans in rural areas and 27.7% in tribal lands lack high-speed reliable internet coverage, according to a recent report from the Federal Communications Commission. Closer to home, more than 1 million people in Ohio and about 100,000 in the Mahoning Valley also lack that service, estimates show.
Building massive trenches and installing high-speed fiber — the major infrastructures for efficient internet connectivity — are incredibly pricey and logistically difficult. That’s why most cable companies and internet service providers strictly limit their service areas to urban and suburban communities.
That’s also why local, state and federal governments have had to come to the aid of sparsely populated rural areas in providing high-speed internet service. The biggest pot of current funding comes from 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provides $42.5 billion to help states expand internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment and adoption programs. That figure represents more than half of all government spending by the state of Ohio for this entire fiscal year.
With such enormous spending, federal broadband programs cannot go unchecked. Like any program involving billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, safeguards must be in place to ensure fraud and waste do not dilute the overall effectiveness and impact of internet expansion.
To its credit, the U.S. General Accountability Office this spring released an audit of spending t from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other federal sources on broadband. It concluded that federal broadband efforts are “fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100 programs administered by 15 agencies.”
With such fragmentation, oversight to monitor proper and responsible spending can become difficult. That’s one reason why the GAO has recommended a national broadband strategy be implemented with clear roles, goals, objectives and performance measures to support better management of programs. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has supported the finding and has agreed to work with the Biden administration in developing and fine-tuning it.
Similarly, state authorities also should work to ensure stringent oversight of Ohio-taxpayer funded internet expansion projects to ensure the biggest bang from taxpayers’ bucks. Federal and state lawmakers, for their part, should continue to press for projects to narrow the digital divide but ensure such programs are solid and spending on them is done responsibly.
We’re hopeful then that with heaping helpings of patience, caution and perseverance, the goal of achieving 100 percent connectivity for America by 2030 need not be a pipe dream.
