To Withstand Emergencies Like Helene, Broadband Policies Need to Last

Jessica Dine, a policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute and Wireless Future Project, wrote an article published in Broadband Breakfast arguing that without resilient policies, U.S. broadband networks will never be able to weather the increasing intense storms. She emphasizes that policymakers must continue to push forward strong, consistent, and consumer-friendly broadband policies—regardless of whether disasters are taking place and making headlines.

At a time when our total reliance on digital infrastructure is widely acknowledged but regularly under threat from extreme weather events like Hurricanes Helene and Milton (and Maria before them), the need for an FCC that’s empowered to enforce strong consumer protections should not be in question. The push to finally close all infrastructure gaps is long overdue.

And there is no excuse for Congress’s failure to revive the ACP—a uniformly popular and highly effective broadband subsidy program—when affordability remains a major barrier to broadband access and when the success of the $42.5 billion earmarked through BEAD relies, in part, on the demand created by the ACP.

COVID-era broadband programs offered a welcome fix for the remaining digital divide, but it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic to get us there in the first place. We now have consensus that broad connectivity is a goal worth pursuing—we shouldn’t wait for another crisis to follow through.