Broadband's Impact
How the Farm Bill and the USDA ReConnect Program May Help Narrow a Rural Digital Divide

Editor’s Note: The most recent edition of Broadband Communities Magazine features a special section on rural broadband, including this overview piece about the passage of the Agricultural Improvement Act and the ReConnect. Incidentally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s series of webinars on the program continue with events on Tuesday, March 12; Thursday, March 14; and Wednesday, March 20. For details about upcoming events, visit https://www.usda.gov/reconnect/events.
New Funding For Rural Broadband January/February 2019 • By Drew Clark | BroadbandBreakfast.com | The passage of the Agricultural Improvement Act and the opening of a funding window for the ReConnect program will help narrow the rural digital divide.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has two new significant broadband programs to implement in addition to its existing telecommunications-focused programs.
On December 20, 2018, President Trump signed the Agriculture Improvement Act, known as the “farm bill.” In addition to including measures designed to stimulate rural broadband, the act also revamped several aspects of Rural Utilities Service broadband funding.
One week earlier, the Agriculture Department unveiled the details of its $600 million broadband loan and grant program – dubbed ReConnect – which was originally called for by appropriations legislation passed in March 2018.
Farm Bill Additions
The farm bill, H.R. 2, passed by the House of Representatives on December 12 and by the Senate one day earlier, included a number of items previously included in the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act and increased funding for RUS grant and loan programs to $350 million for the years 2019 to 2023. It annually allocates $50 million for Community Connect grants, $10 million for rural middle-mile infrastructure grants and loans, and $10 million for a gigabit-focused program called the Innovative Broadband Advancement Program.
The precision agriculture measure established a task force to identify connectivity gaps in agricultural areas. Members, who will be nominated by the USDA and the Federal Communications Commission, will also develop policy recommendations to promote the rapid, expanded deployment of fixed and mobile broadband internet access service on unserved agricultural land, with a goal of achieving reliable capabilities on 95 percent of agricultural land in the United States by 2025.
The task force will propose effective policy and regulatory solutions that encourage the adoption of broadband internet access service on farms and ranches and promote precision agriculture; recommend specific steps that the FCC should take to obtain reliable, standardized data measurements of the availability of broadband internet access to unserved rural areas; and explore ways that USDA expertise can inform FCC policies.
Additionally, the farm bill legislation codifies the Agriculture Department’s definition of minimum acceptable broadband speeds at 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. And it will require that RUS fund projects only in areas where at least 90 percent of households lack access to internet speeds of more than 10 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream.
ReConnect Details Unveiled
On December 13, one day after the House passed the farm bill, the USDA released the long-awaited details of the ReConnect program. It implements the $600 million in new funding that was included in the $1.3 trillion congressional omnibus spending bill passed in March 2018.
“High-speed internet e-connectivity is a necessity, not an amenity, vital for quality of life and economic opportunity, so we hope that today rural communities kick off their rural broadband project planning,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who spoke at a briefing at the department’s headquarters near the National Mall. “We don’t want an urban-rural divide in the county,” he said. “When are we going to stop having to drive rural kids to places where they can do homework by skimming off Wi-Fi from fast food restaurants?”
The program is being administered by USDA Rural Development, the umbrella agency at the Agriculture Department that includes the Rural Utilities Service.
Jannine Miller, senior adviser for rural infrastructure to Perdue, introduced the secretary, saying that “connecting America is truly transformative.”
Funding Rules for ReConnect
Municipalities, rural electric co-ops and utilities, and private internet companies may all apply for funding through ReConnect.
The USDA will make available approximately $200 million for grants, $200 million for loan and grant combinations and $200 million for low-interest loans. The grant applications are due by April 29, 2019, the loan-grant combination applications are due May 29, and loan applications can be submitted between March 1 and June 28. (At press time, the USDA was shut down, so these dates may have to be adjusted.)
Chad Parker, the Rural Utilities Service assistant administrator for telecommunications policy, said that projects funded through this initiative must serve communities with fewer than 20,000 people who have no broadband service or whose service is slower than 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.
“Approved projects must create access speeds of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload,” Parker added. Priority will be awarded for projects that propose to deliver higher-capacity connections to rural homes, businesses and farms.
“USDA seeks to stretch these funds as far as possible by leveraging existing networks and systems without overbuilding existing services greater than 10/1 Mbps,” the USDA said in a news release.
Evaluation criteria include connecting agricultural production and marketing, e-commerce, health care and education facilities. The grant program and grant/loan combination program will award funding to the applicants with the highest scores according to the evaluation criteria, but the pure loans will be awarded on a rolling basis to any qualified applicant.
Previous research by the USDA – and many others – has connected high-capacity broadband to all aspects of rural prosperity, including the ability to grow and attract businesses, retain and develop talent and maintain rural quality of life.
ReConnect Implementation
The USDA is holding a series of webinars and regional in-person workshops; a list of upcoming public webinars and workshops is available at ReConnect’s resource portal at reconnect.usda.gov.
The historical genesis of the program includes the Trump administration’s establishment of an Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity to identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes that could promote agriculture and prosperity in rural communities.
The task force findings included 31 recommendations to align the federal government with state, local and tribal governments to take advantage of opportunities that exist in the rural United States, and increasing investments in rural infrastructure was a key recommendation of the task force.
At the time of the March 2018 omnibus appropriation bill’s passage, Perdue said that “increased support for broadband internet access is in line with administration goals and will be an important boost as we look to improve the economy in rural America.”
Reception to ReConnect
A variety of other government and nongovernment entities weighed in with support for the ReConnect program.
Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said in a statement, “I’m pleased the USDA is finally moving forward on the $600 million high-speed internet investment Congress provided in the 2018 omnibus. Expanding high-speed Internet access is vital to the growth and success of our small towns and rural communities in Michigan and across the country.”
When the bill was passed in March, Stabenow noted that the $600 million for rural broadband “represents the largest investment in broadband expansion since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.”
Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said, “Secretary Perdue’s announcement lays the groundwork for an improved approach to making broadband a reality across rural America. This pilot program and the strong broadband provisions included in the 2018 farm bill highlight a much-needed shift in federal policy to make rural broadband a possibility for the estimated 23 million Americans who lack it.
“More than 100 electric co-ops have launched broadband deployment projects to help modernize rural economies,” Matheson added. “We are very pleased that the pilot program adopts a 25/3 sufficiency standard and will prioritize applications that would deliver speeds in excess of the 25/3 minimum standard.”
Matheson said “all capable providers should have equal access to federal funding” and that grants should be prioritized in areas with the lowest population density “given that is a prime cost driver of the lack of broadband deployment.”
Source: New Funding For Rural Broadband, from Broadband Communities
Broadband's Impact
Lindsay Mark Lewis: As Inflation Spiked, Broadband is ‘The Dog That Didn’t Bark’
Why have internet prices remained constant while demand surges? It all boils down to investment.

There are many lessons to be learned from last year’s midterms, but Democrats should not take the results as some broad endorsement of the economic status quo. Midterm voters identified inflation as the most important issue driving their votes. And while the latest Labor Department data shows the producer price index decreasing by 0.1% in February, prices remain 4.6% higher than a year ago, which means lawmakers still have work to do to bring inflation under control.
And as they search for ideas, they may want to examine the dog that didn’t bark – in particular, the one sector of the economy that has been an interesting counternarrative to the otherwise troubling inflation story.
Home internet service is one of the few major living costs that isn’t skyrocketing. In fact, the most popular broadband speed tier one year ago actually costs 15% less today, on average.
This success story – and the bipartisan policies behind it – offers important lessons.
Remarkably, broadband prices are declining even as demand surges. The pandemic made home internet service more essential than ever for education, job opportunities and health care – all driving internet traffic 25% to 50% above pre-pandemic levels.
So why have internet prices remained constant – even declined by some measures – while demand surges? In short, it all boils down to investment.
When the pandemic cratered economic activity in the spring of 2020, executives in many industries – from lumber to oil refineries to computer chips – made the snap decision to pull back on long-term investments in new factories and manufacturing capacity. When the economy roared back, those industries couldn’t meet demand, sending prices soaring.
In the broadband industry, conversely, providers responded by investing $86 billion into their network infrastructure in 2021 – the biggest one-year total in nearly 20 years. These investments are fueling faster speeds – fixed broadband speeds are up 35% nationwide in the past 12 months – while making sure networks have the capacity to handle growing traffic needs.
This teaches us three things.
First, we should observe a Hippocratic oath and “do no harm.” America’s broadband system has thrived under a decades long bipartisan consensus for light-touch, pro-investment policies. Nearly $2 trillion in private capital built the networks that now deliver American consumers higher speeds at lower per-megabit prices than consumers enjoy in Europe, despite having to cover greater distances and more difficult terrain.
This further tells us that it’s precisely the wrong time to abandon this successful model in favor of price controls and utility-style regulation, as some House and Senate progressives have proposed. Even Democratic policy experts acknowledge that approach would be toxic for private investment.
Second, policymakers need to recognize that broadband isn’t immune from the supply chain crunches plaguing so many other sectors of the economy. Broadband buildouts are already getting delayed by shortages in fiber cable, network hardware and skilled labor. And that’s before $42 billion in federal infrastructure funding goes out the door starting next year, which will only intensify demand for these scarce supplies.
That means rural buildout projects funded by federal dollars are likely to see inflationary pressures – and take longer to complete – than Congress expected when it passed the infrastructure bill in 2021. That will put pressure on state broadband offices to be even more diligent about waste, and to emphasize reliable supply chains with experienced network builders. Bidders will also need the flexibility to buy fiber from wherever they can manage to source it, even if that means relaxing the program’s strict “Buy American” rules. This requires a regulator ability to do smart tweaking of rules to expedite buildouts cost-effectively.
Third, we need to help more financially struggling households get connected. Thanks to President Joe Biden’s Affordable Connectivity Program – and an agreement with 20 broadband companies – 48 million households can now get home internet service for free.
But more than a year later, just over a third of eligible households have signed up. Investing in enrollment campaigns and digital literacy training programs is the fastest way we can crank up the dial on enrollment. Relatively small investments here could pay huge dividends in bringing millions more Americans into the digital economy.
Even with these remaining challenges, the overall contours of American broadband policy – encouraging investment, competition and affordability – are working well. And as the saying goes: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In an inflation-roiled economy that defies easy answers, we should learn from – not mess with – this all-too-rare success story.
Lindsay Mark Lewis is executive director of the Progressive Policy Institute. Contact him at llewis@ppionline.org. This piece was originally published in the Richmond Times on March 24, 2023, and is reprinted with permission.
Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.
Broadband's Impact
Josephine Bernson: The Customer Experience is About More Than Fiber
‘Listen to the customer’ is a fundamental pillar in gaining a satisfied customer.

Customer experience and the digital customer experience are what makes businesses today stand apart from competitors. In our connected world, it means delivering products and services via high-speed internet, provided by a network that’s reliable and scalable according to rising bandwidth demand.
Yet, we must keep in mind the other component of a first-rate customer experience: customer service excellence.
Customer service excellence, from the beginning
How does a fiber provider successfully work with the customers and the community from the very beginning? And, continue to provide exceptional customer service each day thereafter?
It begins with listening. “Listen to the customer” is a fundamental pillar in gaining a satisfied customer, whether it’s meeting with business executives, community leaders or residents. What are they hoping to achieve with their network, short-term and long-term? Any concerns that should be addressed?
Respond with solutions that meet their needs. Personalization is better than a one-size-fits-all approach. Each customer has different needs and unique bandwidth specifications that should be taken into consideration. For example, the ability to adjust availability to accommodate peak work hours for a financial institution or local government complex or the flexibility needed for a local business that serves an online global market.
Get to know your customers. Focus on getting to know your customers through participating in local events and spending time in the community. Teams that live and work in same community they serve care about providing their neighbors with high-quality products and superior service. Valuable feedback comes from customers who directly interact with local employees immersed in the community.
Timely and convenient customer service options. If there’s a problem, how can customers contact you for a resolution? Does the customer service center or 24/7 operations center always have agents available? Are there easily accessible online resources equipped to handle common questions? Automation is a big trend in CX. While we enjoy our personal relationships with our customers, we also leverage technology for self-service tools. It’s important to enable customers to do business in whichever manner works best for them.
Happy employees for a happy customer experience
Happy employees have long been credited with increased productivity and better service for customers. Great Plains Communications’ culture has always been to attract, train and retain workers from the areas it serves.
Customer service representative Marisa Benham has been with Great Plains Communications for 15 years. “I’ve always been a people person so I really love talking to people! I love helping them figure out what services they want and helping them if they have an issue with their account.”
As for the GPC team itself, she says, “The biggest thing I love about our team is that even though we’re a large company, I feel like we are still trying to get that small company family feel. I really love that about Great Plains as well.”
For any business to survive for a long period it must continually evolve. Great Plains Communications is a 113-year-old company serving nearly 200 Midwestern communities. As a leading digital telecommunications leader, our core focus remains the same: customer service excellence. We believe in our high-performing network and high-performing people.
Customer loyalty depends on the customer experience, but it must be earned. It’s more than state-of-the-art technologies. It’s the people behind the innovation. It’s the teams that deliver and support the technology that make all the difference.
Josephine Bernson is the chief revenue officer at Great Plains Communications. This piece is exclusive to BroadbandBreakfast.
Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.
Digital Inclusion
Sean Gonsalves: National Digital Inclusion Alliance Hosts Largest Net Inclusion Gathering
NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer zeroed in on the need for good data.

With nearly 1,000 in attendance at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) marquee gathering, those on the front lines of bridging the digital divide across the nation came to the three-day conference (Feb 28 to March 2) to network, share lessons, best-practices, and learn from experts as the largest ever federal investment in expanding broadband access is heading to state broadband offices this summer.
Mayor addresses attendees, acknowledges open secret of segregation
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg welcomed attendees, noting how his city was a fitting venue for the event.
“It’s no secret San Antonio is one of the most socio-economically segregated cities in the United States,” he said. “And that’s why we have zeroed-in on equity – in our budget, in who gets invited to the table.”

Nirenberg congratulated NDIA for its work and the attendance record set by this year’s gathering. He also singled out our own outreach coordinator and San Antonio resident DeAnne Cuellar, not only lauding her work with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks team but for her role in bringing city officials together with Older Adults Technology Services as the city commits to connecting 100,000 older adults in the city.
(ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks team, which has long worked with NDIA participated conducted a workshop, participated in several panels discussions, and hosted a special Connect This! live stream at a social mixer at The Friendly Spot Icehouse.)
“Broadband is a basic human right and is a public utility. That’s why digital inclusion is a pillar of our recovery program,” Nirenberg said, noting how that is reflected in line items in the city’s budget.
Mayor Nirenberg also spoke candidly about injustices that had been baked-in to city and state policies in the past and, whether intentional or not, excluded vulnerable communities across the city, putting them at a socio-economic disadvantage. He said that closing the digital divide was central to correcting those injustices.
He concluded his welcoming remarks encouraging attendees to “use technology to live, learn, work and thrive.”
Texas broadband office announces new network funding opportunity
Also on hand for the conference was Greg Conte, Director of the Texas Broadband Development Office. Conte announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for $120 million in grants for the construction of new high-speed Internet infrastructure across the Lone Star State.
As projects are funded to build new infrastructure, the state can’t assume people will automatically subscribe for Internet service, as efforts to tackle affordability and adoption are equally important undertakings.
“We want to make sure communities can get online and use it,” he said. “We ask all Texans to help in this process.”
He also briefly touched on something numerous other state broadband offices are in the process of doing: beefing up staff as each state is set to receive an historic amount of federal funds from the bipartisan infrastructure bill’s BEAD program.
Conte was a guest on our Community Broadband Bits podcast last summer in which he discussed the challenges of staffing up his office and addressing the dearth of data about precisely where broadband is and isn’t available across the state.
Engaging other sectors in the work of advocating for more ACP funding
Batting clean-up was NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer, who first zeroed in on the need for good data that shows and measures how local digital equity programs are working, and how those efforts can be improved.

And while quality robust data is vital, she said, it is also worth thinking about who benefits from expanded broadband access (beyond individual end-users) and how data and stories about digital inclusion initiatives can be used to engage industries and sectors of society who may not see bridging the digital divide as an urgent concern.
That includes the necessity of getting more than just Internet service providers at the table. Buy-in from healthcare providers, educational leaders, captains of retail and commerce, as well as transportation planners and housing officials should be engaged in helping to make broadband available especially for residents who struggle with affordability.
Specifically as it relates to commerce, Siefer noted, “the savings that can come from conducting certain business online can be invested into access.”
Siefer also emphasized the value of digital equity advocates sharing the stories they encounter of the lives impacted by their work with those who may not be tuned into the connectivity crisis that still plagues even such a technologically-sophisticated nation as the U.S.
Lastly, Siefer reminded the attendees that the federal funding that supports the Affordable Connectivity Program will run in the next year or so without additional appropriation from Congress.
“We need more money for the ACP,” she said, adding that it was important for state and local leaders to be pushing their Congressional representatives to replenish the ACP’s coffers.
“The long term plan is that the Universal Service Fund needs to be fixed but that is going to take time. The ACP will run out of funds before the USF is fixed,” she said.
Before the general assembly dispersed to a variety of focused workshops and breakout groups, Siefer ended with a note of encouragement: “Remember you guys are the heroes. You do the work on the ground. But NDIA has your back.”
Watch the plenary sessions below. Also, stay tuned for our new podcast series Building for Digital Equity, which will debut soon and feature interviews with dozens of frontline digital inclusion practitioners discussing the work they are doing in their local communities.
This article originally appeared on the Institute for Local Self Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks project on March 2, 2023, and is reprinted with permission.
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