No rural residents connected to internet, 3 years into Biden broadband program

Some three years after the Biden administration announced the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program for rural America, not one household has been connected to high speed internet. Not one project has begun construction elsewhere or here, despite some $650 million in funding for Minnesota alone.

And broadband service providers recently told MinnPost not to expect anything to change, given the federal program’s burdensome rules and red tape.

While Minnesota will be receiving $652 million from the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program to help fund broadband access projects across the state, many internet service providers might not opt-in over frustrations with the program. 

“My members are telling me they’re not going to participate,” said Brent Christensen, president and CEO of Minnesota Telecom Alliance. “The way that BEAD is structured. I don’t know how anybody’s going to participate.”

His group represents 70 companies that provide advanced telecommunications services, like wireless video and high-speed internet, to Minnesota’s rural and metropolitan regions. Members vary in size, with the largest, Century Link, serving metro customers and the smallest serving a little over 200 customers. 

Broadband providers have received state grants to build out fiber optic infrastructure for years. But evidently the federal program comes with too many strings attached and not enough incentives.

The industry is frustrated with the federal body because of these requirements and the amount of time it’s taken to set up a program. Melissa Wolf, executive director of the Minnesota Cable Communications Association, said Minnesota already had programs that worked well with internet service providers and that if BEAD had more closely modeled those programs, projects would have already been completed. 

“But now here we are, four years later, and grant rounds haven’t opened yet. It’s a little disappointing,” Wolf said.  

In fact, the federal broadband program came under heavy criticism during the presidential campaign. So-called “broadband czar” Vice President Kamala Harris took the brunt of the harsh assessment led by South Dakota GOP Senator John Thune on the Senate floor.

“Instead of focusing on delivering broadband services to unserved areas, the Biden-Harris administration loaded down the BEAD program with a liberal wish list of requirements that were never envisioned by Congress and have obstructed broadband deployment.

“Climate change mandates. Prioritizing government-owned networks over private investment. Biased technology mandates. Prioritizing the use of union labor. Attempts to impose price controls – in direct violation of the law. DEI hiring priorities.

“What should have been a straightforward application and approval process for building networks has become a literal morass.“

At this point, it’s too risky for many providers to take a chance on investing in the build-out.

The BEAD program also requires providers to provide low-cost services to low-income households. 

“That’s OK when you’ve got a lot of businesses and you’ve got a lot of customers that you can spread that out over. But when you’re a small company in rural Minnesota, you don’t have that customer base to spread it out on so you can’t do that,” Christensen said. 

It didn’t help that the state broadband office had to spend months correcting the feds’ faulty maps of areas eligible for funding, a process that wraps up this month. As a result, funding will be announced in late 2025, meaning construction will not get underway until 2026, if providers decide to participate.

“When you add a lot of these other things on top of it, what they (providers) will end up spending in time, resources and money is, you know, in some cases, could be a bigger risk than it is a benefit to be able to serve these people,” [Executive director of the Minnesota Cable Communications Association Melissa] Wolf said. “That’s a lot of what providers will have to take into consideration.”