Can broadband investments boost the talent pool? – CIO Dive

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in November, isn’t just about roads and bridges. It provides $65 billion towards broadband expansion, which could change the way people work in the future, and from where they work — especially rural areas.

Carri Bennet, partner at Womble Bond Dickinson and general counsel to the Rural Wireless Association, compares the bill to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, a Great Depression project that funded the installation of electrical distribution systems to rural areas across the U.S.

“When there wasn’t electricity through the United States, we had to come up with a program to build electricity out to live anywhere,” she said. “These days you have to have electricity and broadband.”

For employers, this means a potential expansion of the talent pool. Seven in 10 employers plan to adopt a hybrid work model, according to a recent study by Mercer. Expanded rural broadband access could mean more potential employees, even as the impact of the bill won’t be felt for years to come.

Big broadband funding — once details are worked out

The spigot of money hasn’t been turned on just yet. “The devil is in the details,” said Bennet.

Of that $65 billion pot, $42.45 billion will go towards the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, which funds competitive grant programs administered through states for qualifying infrastructure, mapping and adoption projects.

That program will allocate at least $100 million to each state plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, along with $25 million to each of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. States and territories will draft and submit plans on how to use their broadband funds. Then companies can bid on that work.

The FCC will also be releasing a broadband map, as required by the Broadband DATA act, that identifies unserved locations in high-cost areas, with 10% of the total allocation of funds going to address those unmet, mostly urban, needs. The act also includes $2 billion in funding for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, which supports broadband deployment on tribal lands.

Bennet estimates work won’t begin until 2022 at the earliest, and projects could be further delayed if shortages in semiconductor chips and wire supply continue.

Regardless of the implementation timeline, the impact will be big, and long lasting, even if the road ahead isn’t entirely clear.

“There’s just no precedent for how this is going to play out. This is more money at one time than we’ve ever seen dispersed for new broadband infrastructure,” said Ry Marcattilio-McCracken, senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative.