The biggest Internet service providers will dominate a $42.45 billion broadband grant program unless the Biden administration changes a rule requiring grant recipients to obtain a letter of credit from a bank, according to a joint statement from consumer advocacy groups, local government officials, and advocates for small ISPs.
The letter sent today to US government officials argues that “by establishing capital barriers too steep for all but the best-funded ISPs, the LOC [letter-of-credit requirement] shuts out the vast majority of entities the program claims to prioritize: small and community-centered ISPs, minority and women-owned ISPs, nonprofits, and municipalities.”
The rule is part of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that’s being administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Not the existing players, your government. Telephone companies gained right of way from your state because everybody wanted a telephone. Cable companies made a deal with your municipality for right of way by paying for it with a non-compete clauses. Power companies did the same thing. Why would they put millions of dollars worth of infrastructure in the ground for anything less? Your state and local government, and by extension you, sold it to them.