The White House this week is promoting the concept of universal broadband that’s part of the American Jobs Plan infrastructure package as a large investment in cybersecurity.
The White House issued a fact sheet Tuesday to help President Joe Biden round up support on Capitol Hill and consumers for the legislative measures. The Job Plan’s $100 billion funding of “affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband” will also be an historic investment in network security when combined with Biden’s executive order on cybersecurity, the White House said, according to Multichannel News.
Grant recipients “will be asked to source from ‘trusted vendors,'” while preference for the grants will be given to “open, interoperable architecture,” at least “where feasible,” the administration says in the document. Tech companies praise the goal of securing digital infrastructure.
However, broadband providers argue the plan’s emphasis on municipal buildouts risks funding going to places that already have some service, rather than rural areas without service. ISPs want limits on government broadband buildouts that they say can end up overbuilding, leaving taxpayers to fund the rest, according to Multichannel News.
Former FCC Chair Michael Powell, now head of NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, says the president’s plan ignores decades of successful government policy. That approach subsidizes the hard-to-reach and low-income residents through the FCC Universal Service Fund subsidy program, which enables ISPs to continue to create capital so they can invest in buildouts and upgrades, in order to secure their networks.
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