Senators Capito and Hassan Re-Introduce the Rural Reasonable and Comparable Wireless Access Act

BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Together with her Democratic colleague Sen. Maggie Hassan, Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito on Friday introduced legislation designed to establish a national standard that would govern the Federal Communications Commission’s determination about whether mobile and broadband services in rural areas are “reasonably comparable” to service provided in urban areas. Capito has also recently introduced a number of other pieces of broadband legislation, including Measuring the Economic Impact of Broadband Act (with Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska), and the Broadband Data Improvement Act (with Sens. Brian Schatz, D- Hawai‘i, Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, and Jon Tester, D-Montana). The measures demonstrate that the desire on Capitol Hill for better rural broadband is palpable, and bipartisan.