The White House said that the President's American Broadband Initiative has made "important progress" in expanding rural broadband access. 

That is according to the just-released American Broadband Initiative Progress Report. 

“President Trump has made expanding rural broadband access a top priority, and Americans nationwide are seeing results," said chief technology officer Michael Kratsios (he is in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy). Kratsios said that since the launch of the initiative last year that important progress has come in "removing barriers to broadband deployment and spurring investment in network buildout." 

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The initiative launched last February, driven in part by the President's desire to help farmers get high-tech connections for precision agriculture, but the pandemic has put an exclamation point on the need to close the rural digital divide for everything from remote healthcare to virtual classrooms.  

The progress report was issued the same day that House Republicans unveiled over a dozen bills to further speed deployment of wireless and wired broadband, principally by cutting regulatory "red tape" related to infrastructure buildouts. 

Among the examples of progress the report points to was the FCC's creation of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which will give out a total of $20 billion over 10 years for broadband buildouts "in the hardest to reach areas." The reverse auction for the first tranche of those funds--$16 billion--is slated to be held this fall. 

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The White House also cited the FCC's coordination with the USDA so that its rural broadband subsidies don't overlap with either the RDOF fund or the FCC's $9 billion 5G buildout fund. 

Other examples of progress include that 1) about four million rural Americans have gained access to broadband internet; 2) since 2017, the number of Americans with no access has decreased by 30%; 3) consecutive records (in 2018 and 2019) for new fiber deployment. 

Public Knowledge's message to the Senate Wednesday (May 13) will be that broadband is an essential service currently without universal access, a digital divide that must be closed in a COVID-19 reality with money prioritized to municipal broadband and co-ops and with Congress removing limitations on "overbuilding." 

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Public Knowledge says that any government money toward that end should be conditioned either on funding competing service in undserved areas--municipal broadband and co-ops-- or mandating that ISPs serve areas they do not currently take subsidies to build out because they are unprofitable over time. 

That is according to the testimony of senior advisor Gene Kimmelman for a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on broadband and COVID-19. He said Congress' must not only look at short term measure but long-term investments in expanding access to those in need in all communities, rural, suburban and urban, and by access he means to "reliable, resilient and sufficient" broadband service, and to both unserved and underserved.  

Kimmelman said government policies creating more affordable broadband should supersede the state bans or impediments to municipal broadband. 

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He suggested Congress may need to allocate as much as $80 billion for a universal buildout, citing FCC estimates that that is what it will cost to deploy nationwide broadband. He said Congress should prioritize municipal broadband and co-ops when handing out the money. 

ISPs have traditionally pushed back on such efforts as government-subsidized overbuilds of their existing service that often aren't sustainable as ongoing operations once the build-out subsidies run out. 

He also said Congress should force the FCC to come up with better broadband availability data and to treat state broadband grants as complements, not replacements, for federal efforts. The FCC has said a new broadband buildout fund should be reserved for areas not already getting broadband grants from other sources. 

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And while there has been an emphasis on digital learning for K-12, Kimmelman said Congress should also pass the Connectivity for Higher Education Students in Need Act, which provides money for post-secondary schools. 

Kimmelman's other asks included a ban on data caps, reinstating FCC copper retirement rules, and requiring the FCC to collect detailed data on broadband pricing.