Setting the Bar for Public Funding: Aiming Higher with the Connect America Fund

[Commentary] How can we improve the biggest tool to closing the digital divide in the Federal Communications Commission’s toolbox: the Connect America Fund. Back in 2011, the FCC adopted a performance goal for the Connect America Fund of ensuring universal access to fixed broadband and concluded it would measure progress towards this outcome based on the number of newly served locations — but it did not articulate any concrete vision for when this universal service goal might be achieved. Now, many (but not all) CAF recipients are required to extend broadband to some number of unserved customers by various dates ranging from 2019 to 2026. In time, it will be easier for consumers to connect to the internet, but it’s not happening overnight. I believe it’s time to scrutinize what we are accomplishing with the Connect America Fund at the macro level, to make sure we aren’t aiming too low. If we’ve learned anything in the last eight years, it’s that the world is rapidly changing. We need to aim higher, because by the time we get there, the rest of the world will be even farther along. We shouldn’t be satisfied if the net result of billions of dollars of expenditures is that 8 million or more consumers in CAF-eligible areas are assured access to only 10 Mbps fixed broadband at some future date — that’s markedly lower than what is widely available in urban areas today.

[Carol Mattey is the former Deputy Bureau Chief of the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau (2010–2017) and Senior Advisor on the National Broadband Plan (2009–2010)]