As broadband deployment continues across the country, state and local governments are imposing numerous barriers that are standing in the way of deployment of the tens of billions of dollars in investments authorized by the bipartisan 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and other sources of funding. 

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has been closely following the application approval process for the IIJA’s $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program and described barriers and skewed incentives imposed by state governments, including preferential treatment for government-owned networks and onerous pricing regulations.  Another layer of barriers to bridging the digital divide is at the local level. 

The documentary film, “Every Last Mile,” details the risky and complex work being done to connect rural areas of the country.  The challenges encountered by construction crews across the country include extreme weather and rugged terrain, and other hazardous conditions that cause delays and disruptions in building new cellular towers and laying fiber in the ground.

Adding to the natural obstacles are arbitrary and restrictive municipal permitting rules for internet service providers to deploy infrastructure along public rights-of-way that delay deployment and block efforts to bridge the digital divide are especially harmful.  On December 31, 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted reforms to its pole attachment policies by creating a new intra-agency response team to consider complaints and resolve disputes quickly, and allowing pole attachers to receive pole inspection reports from local government utilities to help determine if the increased capacity of any attachments would undermine the integrity of the pole.  However, local governments continue to impose barriers to deployment. 

For example, T-Mobile, the nation’s third-largest wireless provider with more than 119 million subscribers as of the end of 2023, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against Wanaque, New Jersey on June 13, 2024, alleging that the town violated the Communications Act of 1934 by breaching the terms of the company’s 25-year lease agreement, signed in 2009.  In addition to regular rent payments, the mobile carrier has also paid $2,600 in other fees to the borough.

Permit reform is essential to delivering high speed internet to every unserved community across the U.S.  As the documentary film shows, deployment is challenging enough without having municipalities to charge exorbitant permitting and pole attachment fees and demanding onerous terms for access to government-owned poles, land, and rights-of-way.  If they continue to do so, federal broadband efforts will be delayed, and taxpayer funds will be wasted.