For too many Washington residents, particularly in rural
areas, that service is unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Broad measures
at both the state and federal levels are necessary to make high-speed internet
accessible for everybody.
Alas, the Legislature this year may have made the situation
more untenable. Two pieces of legislation — House Bill 1336 and Senate Bill
5383 — that give public utility districts and ports the authority to offer
broadband internet were passed and signed into law. The idea is to allow public
entities to provide service in remote areas where private companies do not
operate because it is not cost effective.
One problem is that the bills might conflict. The House bill
provides broader authority, allowing public entities to serve areas already
served by private companies, such as CenturyLink or Comcast.
Another problem is that Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bills
simultaneously last week — one with his right hand and one with his left.
Crosscut reports: “Confusion is mounting about whether the two laws can
coexist. And that debate may end up in court. … If the bills do conflict with
one another, the order in which they were signed into law becomes of paramount
importance. In theory, the last bill signed would take precedence over the
other.”
The conflict adds unnecessary difficulty to a pressing
situation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 735,000 Washington
residents — roughly 10 percent of the population — do not have internet access
in their homes; an additional 500,000 rely on limited cellphone data plans, and
thousands more still use slower dial-up services.
For a state that is home to some of the world’s largest and
most innovative high-tech companies, this is unacceptable. Inslee could have
avoided confusion by signing one bill and vetoing the other.
Nationally, the situation is not much different. In 2010,
the Federal Communications Commission declared that every American should have
access to broadband service by 2020; but an estimated 42 million Americans
remain without access, and an additional 100 million cannot afford to hook into
local service. A Microsoft study last year determined that half the country was
not connecting at broadband speed.
Broadband access is essential for equal access to education,
jobs, health care and other linchpins of modern society. It also is essential
to economic growth and productivity, and President Joe Biden’s infrastructure
proposal calls for $100 billion in digital investments with a goal of making
broadband access universal.
Last week, the FCC launched a federal plan to assist
low-income households with monthly internet bills. But discounts are available
only through providers that choose to offer them, and they will expire six
months after the end of the pandemic. In addition, schools and libraries can
benefit from a $7 billion infusion for another FCC program, one championed by
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Patchwork solutions, however, cannot close America’s digital
divide. Nor can they keep up with China, where roughly 90 percent of the 1
billion internet users have broadband access.
Vast investments and creative solutions are necessary, not
confusion promulgated by legislators and Gov. Inslee.
