Broadband as Infrastructure
What It Means That Some Communities Still Don't Have It in 2026
America has made many broken promises. I will not go into detail about that, because we would be here all day. There is a alternate universe where internet is accessible to everyone and is just as essential and universal as electricity, as reliable as running water. Within that same universe, a child in most desert section of Newport News can attend class online with the same ease as a teenager in suburban Chicago. A farmer in Alabama can run a competitive small business the same way a startup founder in San Francisco can. A grandmother in a tribal community can FaceTime her grandchildren and access telehealth without driving two hours to the nearest clinic.
It is rather unfortunate that we are not living in that universe, yet — well at least as promised. Despite the number of years of broken promises that billions of dollars in federal funding and policy announcements, there are still millions of citizens without access to internet services. The digital divide is not just a matter of slow speeds or spotty service, it is a gaping hole in equality. Where have heard and seen this before? The absurdity of it all is not only has there not been much progress, this has been a matter of choosing the grand gestures instead of the simple task.
In 2021, the federal government passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and earmarked $42.45 billion specifically for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. And as it stands today, is the single largest federal investment in internet infrastructure ever. And yet in still, the progress has been everything but existent for a growing economy dependant on access to the web.
As of mid-2026, that money has funded almost no actual construction. Not because the need disappeared. Not because the technology failed. But because the bureaucratic machinery surrounding BEAD turned what should have been a sprint into an obstacle course. States spent years drafting plans, only to see the rules change under them when the administration turned over. The Trump administration restructured the program in June 2025, requiring states to re-submit plans they had already spent years developing. Louisiana, which had been heralded as a model for moving quickly, saw its already-approved plan rescinded. Some broadband advocates warned this added at least another year of delay.
And lets not forget, the Digital Equity Act, a $2.75 billion companion program focused on digital skills, device access, and community adoption, had most of its awarded grants terminated by the Trump administration in May 2025. Although the efforts were taken to court, ligation is still pending and with no real ending in sight.
Failure is America’s strong suit at this point. A 2025 Pew Charitable Trusts report found that flawed federal broadband data routinely overstates coverage in rural areas. Yes, the same exact data that the policies and money provided to measure data and how broadband should, is being overstated. This is laughable. Service Providers have historically been allowed to report a census block as “served” if even one location in that block has access. This is the equivalent of saying a neighborhood should only have one grocery store because one house on the edge of it has a store nearby.
There is also the issue of what “access” even means. The FCC defines broadband access as speeds of at least 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload. (F@$k you Spectrum Internet, weak bastards). But a provider claiming to offer those speeds and a household actually receiving them are two different things, especially in rural terrains where signal degradation, outdated infrastructure, and distance from towers can cut actual performance in half.
With writing this piece, I did not want to just ramble on about the shortcomings and wrongdoings. I also wanted to highlight progress that has been made and give light to states who are trying to keep their “promise.”
Minnesota1 stands out. The state has run its own broadband expansion program since 2014, investing over $400 million and connecting nearly 120,000 homes and businesses as of 2025. The program is state-designed, locally targeted, and does not wait for federal bureaucracy to catch up. It funds networks built to speeds higher than the federal minimum, and it prioritizes competition. This means residents are not locked into a single provider with no alternatives. That combination of standards and structure has made it one of the most effective broadband programs in the country.
Brownsville, Texas offers another model to pay close attention to. In 2019, with two-thirds of households lacking broadband access, the city ranked among the worst-connected in the nation.2 Rather than wait for federal rescue, a new mayor and local advocates used pandemic recovery funds to build a public-private “middle-mile” network in which allows last-mile providers to connect individual homes affordably.
Colorado has focused similarly on middle-mile infrastructure, recognizing that the absence of backbone connectivity is often what makes rural deployment financially unattractive to providers. Maine created Broadband Utility Districts, giving communities authority to build and own their own networks. The Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma built connectivity into tribal territory where commercial providers had no interest in investing. What these three states and scenarios discribe is a method that more citizens and states are trying to adopt, local ownership solves majority of your problems when done properly.
Here are a few suggestions from my vantage point that could work and help close this gap and eliminate this “problem.”
Fix the maps. Mandate household-level coverage data from providers, verified independently. You cannot fund your way out of a problem you cannot accurately see.
Cut the red tape. Permitting delays are killing deployment timelines. The federal government needs to coordinate across agencies and clear the path for construction to actually begin.
Pair infrastructure with people. A fiber line to a home means nothing if the household cannot afford the subscription or does not know how to use it. Digital literacy, device access, and affordability subsidies have to come with the build.
Support what works locally. Municipal networks, cooperatives, and tribal internet authorities have consistently outperformed large commercial providers in the hardest-to-serve areas. State laws that block them need to go.
One day my hope is I can go home to my parents house and not hit dead spots just to have a conversation. That the young girl can complete her science project in the comfort of her own home instead of having to go to a library 30 minutes away that maybe her mother is not in the position to take her to as often. That the youth can have access to the internet to learn and communicate with the world. The same world and access that was promised. But if I am being honest, we know promises are always meant to be broken. Hopefully I am wrong.
https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2026/03/10/the-role-of-state-broadband-policy-in-2026
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/09/how-communities-can-bridge-digital-divide