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As a former FCC commissioner and general counsel, the speaker focused on ensuring Americans have next-generation connectivity, visiting communities and seeing the opportunities high-speed connections bring. A bipartisan consensus emerged, resulting in the $42 billion BEAD initiative. However, the speaker claims that BEAD has gone off the rails; after 1,039 days, not one person has been connected to the Internet, and no infrastructure builds will start until next year at the earliest, or even 2026 in many cases.
The speaker asserts that this makes the initiative the slowest-moving federal broadband deployment program in recent history. The speaker claims that instead of connecting Americans, the administration is advancing a wish list of progressive policy goals, including a climate change agenda, DEI requirements, price controls, preferences for government-run networks, and rules that will lead to wasteful overbuilding. The speaker also claims that the administration revoked an FCC commitment from Starlink to provide internet to 640,000 homes and businesses and is now spending over $100,000 per location for internet through its own initiatives. The speaker concludes that, absent major reforms, the $42 billion program is wired to fail.