Market-Oriented Policies Needed to Boost Rural Broadband Deployment, Jamison Says
Policymakers should remove barriers and tap market forces to spur rural broadband deployment, said American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Jamison, who was on President Donald Trump's transition team. He criticized broadband stimulus programs and FCC "moves to limit" rural broadband…
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profitability and "arbitrarily" define broadband. "These failed policies wasted billions of dollars and did little to help rural communities gain broadband connectivity. It is time to let markets lead the way," he wrote in a blog post Thursday. He said policymakers should streamline local permitting processes, encourage nondiscriminatory access to poles and conduits, and facilitate private-sector use of federal lands and properties for wireless antennas and fiber lines. He supports rolling back net neutrality restrictions to allow broadband providers in targeted rural areas to charge content companies for access to consumers, "perhaps making it profitable to provide broadband" without subsidies. To the extent subsidies are needed, he wrote, "providers should compete" for support through auctions, with the FCC "in the best position" to conduct them. Subsidies "come at a cost to other sectors" and consumers who fund them, he said.