The United States President, Joe Biden has come up with a plan that can change broadband infrastructure in the United States.
The plan is set to become a bill that Republicans and democrats likewise will love to pass the whole process.
Residents of Washington have tried hard to correct the digital divide for several years, but the Coronavirus pandemic has created an opportunity to take action on the accessibility and affordability of broadband.
The pandemic kept workers and students home for lengths of time, making them depend on broadband to connect to the world. Research carried out in March showed that about 31% of American citizens almost spent the entire time online.
On the other hand, 77 million Americans don’t have adequate internet access, and only 2/3 of people in the lowest income bracket have internet access at home.
Although Congress has added $3.2 billion of emergency funding for broadband in the stimulus bill for 2021, the new bill from Biden will add a whopping $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.
The plan will cover several infrastructures like $100 billion for building a broadband network, $50 billion for research and manufacture of semiconductors, and $174 billion for electric vehicles. The plan aims to help every American access reliable, affordable and high-speed broadband.
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A Debate between Democrats and Republicans on Broadband infrastructure
An argument will likely ensue between the Democrats and Republicans, where the Republicans will push for lower subsidies on the upgrade of less expensive broadband networks. Democrats will want the government to incentivize providers of broadband infrastructure so that they can lay more expensive cables for better speed.
Most of the broadband services in the U.S have low upload and high download speed, which many believe mirrored our internet usage. For instance, video streaming counts as downloading, which already has fast speed. However, with distance learning and remote work, more uploads will be done, which means they need high upload speed. Therefore, Democrats believe that given the new realities which will become the new norm, broadband should be fast on upload speed and download speed (100 Mbps going both ways).
In this regard, large telecom companies say that symmetric service is too expensive because they can only achieve it by laying new fiber cables which cost a lot. Phone and cable companies prefer to upgrade the performance of their copper-wire and DSL broadband with government subsidies, and not lay new fiber cables that will achieve quick, symmetric speed. They argue that the improvement will be better than the poor or nearly-absent broadband services available in low-income areas in the U.S today.
Making Broadband Infrastructure available for all
Although there has been awareness about the inadequate broadband coverage in rural areas, the coronavirus pandemic woke us up to the fact that even some urban and suburban areas face poor broadband.
Broadband infrastructure is available in those areas, but it is poor and in dire need of an upgrade.
Despite the old broadband infrastructure and poor speed in those areas, the services are expensive and beyond the reach of many low-income earners.
