One of the things I used to get dinged on in school from time to time was failing to “show my work” in math class. I’d sometimes shortcut to an answer and lose points for it.
If showing your work is necessary for math tests with no real-world implications, the same principle should apply when it comes to giving out billions of dollars for broadband. However, in this case, showing your work isn’t about how you got there. The goal of broadband funding isn’t to cut a ribbon on a fancy new network or to blast statistics about locations passed. If the billions of dollars given out for broadband are going to make a meaningful difference in Americans’ lives, deliver a solid return for American taxpayers and ratepayers, and give America a leg up on global competitiveness and productivity in an era when AI, telehealth, and precision ag needs are exploding, we need to focus on the locations served.
Over the past 15 years, much of the debate in the broadband policy world has focused on serving the unserved. This was understandable – even if strategically incomplete – because it’s hard to consider what it means to keep people connected if they aren’t connected at all to begin with. And there were millions of Americans who initially suffered from a basic lack of connectivity.
NTCA members led the charge to connect rural Americans, so we were perhaps a bit ahead of the curve in shifting our focus to this longer-term strategic question, even as other providers and rural areas were trying to catch up. But now, in theory, we’ll soon enter a phase in which the deployment battle is largely “won,” and the challenge turns to the “service” in “universal service.”
Those ribbon-cutting ceremonies are certainly nice enough, but such celebrations and breathless press releases about locations passed will mean little to the rural broadband consumer the next day, month or year. What matters is whether that fundamental mission of universal service – the ongoing availability of services that are reasonably comparable in price and quality in rural and urban America alike – is fulfilled the next day, month and year.
And this is where showing your work really starts to matter. This is why NTCA called last week for the public release of performance-testing data for BEAD-funded networks, on a provider-by-provider basis. In fact, we’d support the same transparency and accountability across all broadband funding programs (and, for that matter, we’d welcome seeing that for every provider that wants to be on the National Broadband Map). We’d love to see an “accountability dashboard” that allows Americans to compare results and policymakers to see which broadband dollars are delivering an effective return for the nation. We’d love to see how often each funded provider delivers speeds and latency in each rural area that meet the level “subscribed to by a substantial majority of residential consumers,” along with confirmation of whether those services are available at rates that are “reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas.” We’d also love to see relative adoption rates to determine whether consumers are actually using those funded networks. Without this data, you can’t really tell who’s delivering on the true mission of universal service – or whether universal service is being achieved at all.
It’s time to stop guessing whether we’re spending money wisely or whether the mission of universal service is being fulfilled. It’s time to stop treating the mere availability of advertised or promised service as the default accomplishment of universal service. It’s time to start having providers show their work.