As the federal government distributes $42.5 billion to expand broadband internet access across America and its territories, some local leaders are asking themselves: How much economic impact could faster internet create?

The true dollar figure would be spread across the economy, from agriculture and small businesses to harder-to-track impacts like an increased willingness for families to relocate to rural areas.

Editor’s Note: Over the past 15 years, Roberto Gallardo has authored or co-authored more than 70 articles for the Daily Yonder. His primary concentration has been on rural broadband. In this submission, Gallardo looks at a finding from his last Daily Yonder article: that rural whites tend to have slower broadband access than people of color. It’s a counterintuitive fact, given that people of color generally tend to have less access – not more – to basic services.

After five years in a shallow grave, the FCC has revived the rules meant to force internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast and Verizon to treat all traffic equally. The agency voted in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking Thursday, taking its first step toward reinstating net neutrality. 

Net neutrality is poised for a resurgence after the Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to begin the process of reestablishing the so-called open internet rules.

The vote revives a debate that last came to a head in 2017 when the agency voted to reverse the net neutrality rules created just a couple of years earlier. The back and forth occurred while Congress declined to codify the principles of net neutrality — that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all traffic equally without blocking or throttling — into law.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a major step toward finalizing the restoration of net neutrality on Thursday.

Net neutrality rules force internet service providers to enable access to all websites and content providers at equal rates and speeds, regardless of their size or content. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on the FCC, and the commission voted in favor of a notice of proposed rulemaking Thursday at the meeting.

The Biden administration’s $42.5 billion high-speed internet program favors heavily Democrat regions and remote vacation homes, including President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, according to a new report by Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee. 

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, known as BEAD, designated as “unserved” locations places that include mansions, beachfront resort communities, and mountain vacation homes, the report says.

Nebraska’s Winnebago Tribe has long been stuck with sluggish internet service. The federal government plans to fix that by crisscrossing the reservation with fiber-optic cable—at an average cost of $53,000 for each household and workplace connected.

The Biden administration has framed its new, tighter "Buy American" regulations as a way to bolster domestic manufacturing and benefit parts of the country that have been left behind by technological innovation.

To many of those same communities, the White House has promised better connectivity and higher internet speeds. The bipartisan infrastructure plan signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 dedicated $42 billion to expanding broadband access, with much of the funding aimed at laying fiber optic lines in parts of the country where they don't exist.

Texas lawmakers want voters to decide whether the state will spend billions of dollars in broadband and water infrastructure development with two House priority bills filed Monday calling for the historic investments.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan revealed House Bill 9 and House Bill 10, which seek to create the Texas Broadband Infrastructure Fund and the Texas Water Fund, respectively.

President Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending tens of millions in tax dollars to bring fiber optic internet to rural southeast Alaska.

As part of USDA’s “Reconnect Program,” it awarded a roughly $33 million grant to the Alaska Telephone Company (ATC), the agency announced last Thursday. Fiber will be delivered to 92 households and a total of 211 people and five businesses in two Alaska native villages called Skagway and Chilkat, according to a federal grant award listing.