When President Biden announced plans for the $2 trillion American Jobs Plan in March 2021, he singled out broadband internet access as a cornerstone of modern infrastructure. Broadband is neither a luxury or a commodity but rather essential infrastructure: “Broadband internet is the new electricity,” the President’s message read.
The analogy between broadband and electricity is often invoked in popular rhetoric, as is the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which cemented in place the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) as the agency responsible for rural connectivity. In this post I explore the legacy of the REA and discuss its applicability to the present issue of rural broadband. I argue that for the legacy of the REA to be replicated it will take more than federal investment into broadband infrastructure. Instead, any new federal initiatives will need to capture the spirit of the REA that empowered communities to connect themselves in the absence – if not the dismissal – of private capital
The digital divide, signifying the matrix of haves and have nots of broadband availability, affordability, and digital skills, has been painfully apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, where broadband access became a matter of life and death. The divide is particularly acute in rural communities, where the divide separates those who have access to broadband infrastructure and those who do not. Broadband, defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as an “always on” internet connection with a minimum of 25 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload is necessary for everything from healthcare to education, business, and binging Netflix. At least of 17% of rural Americans (11.26 million people), and 20.9% of those living on Tribal lands (846,000 people), lack access to broadband infrastructure. This includes 18% of rural school children. Millions more across the country in both urban and rural areas lack broadband because of cost and affordability. When it is available, only 72% of rural Americans report having a home broadband subscription. Rural subscribers also pay upwards of 37% more for service than their urban counterparts. Worse, these are all conservative estimates and may be 50% higher. Despite a decade of federal intervention and billions of dollars in subsidy, the rural-urban digital divide not only persists, but deepens.
Electrification and broadband share many similarities – most notably, their large-scale absence in rural America. But what of the Rural Electrification Act and the agency it spawned: the Rural Electrification Administration (REA)? Elected officials, including the President, are quick to reference the REA as precedent for government intervention into rural broadband deployment. The sentiment seems to be that if we just replicate the REA, the digital divide will be erased! To the detriment of rural Americans, however, many who praise the REA seem to forget that it was so much more than a bank. To understand the applicability of the REA to broadband inequalities, we need to understand why the REA was so successful, and, more importantly, understand what has changed in the political economy of infrastructure.