Cantwell, Capito Propose Broadband Buildout Along America's Electricity Grid

Press Release

Last week, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, introduced the Grant to Rapidly Invest and Deploy Broadband, or GRID Broadband Act, a pioneering proposal that would provide a robust new federal cost-share to spur investment in a nationwide middle-mile backbone along the nation's existing electricity grid. The goal of this bipartisan initiative is to help provide affordable high-speed Internet options to the 120 million American households that lack connectivity and enhance the resiliency, diversity, and security of America's electrical grid.

"Building out fiber along our nation's existing grid will provide the communications capacity needed to modernize our energy system, make our grid more cybersecure, and bring affordable high-speed internet to tens of millions of hard-to-reach households," said Senator Cantwell. "It's a triple win solution for consumers because it leverages existing rights-of-way and private sector ingenuity and investment to deliver cleaner electricity, stronger cybersecurity, and more accessible broadband services. Almost a century ago, the Rural Electrification Act helped bring power and productivity to every American home and business, now we can piggyback on that success by using the same network to also deliver the data and information America needs to prosper in this century."

"In order to accomplish our goal of bringing reliable, high-speed internet access to every West Virginia community, we need to continue bringing solutions to the table," said Senator Capito. "The GRID Broadband Act would utilize our nation's electric grid system to help build out and deploy broadband, especially in some of the most rural areas of West Virginia with little to no service. Closing the digital divide is a bipartisan priority, and I'm proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Cantwell."

Internet access has become essential to participating in today's digital world--it's the place we go to work, attend school, visit the doctor, and do many other things in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, broadband remains unavailable or too expensive for people to adopt across the country. Data provided by Microsoft shows that approximately 120 million Americans do not access the affordable high-speed internet they need to participate in remote work and education, telehealth, and ecommerce. According to a Pew Research study, 45% of Americans without broadband access cited price among the reasons they did not have broadband service.

In many of these same places where broadband remains out of reach for consumers, utilities are upgrading their infrastructure to make their networks more cybersecure and intelligent through "smart grid" technologies. With the right policies in place, this investment could also be used to provide resilient and broadband networks to help push deployment in unserved and underserved areas. In one case study from Elko, Nevada, additional middle-mile capacity has resulted in prices declining by as much as six times.

Middle-mile infrastructure connects network hubs with the retail networks (known as last-mile infrastructure) that directly serve homes and businesses. These are critical links, because last-mile broadband speed and reliability is dependent on the middle-mile infrastructure that serves it.
Accordingly, the GRID Broadband Act seeks to leverage these investments to create a triple win that will:

Enable more diverse and distributed energy sources to connect to the grid,
Facilitate more cyber-secure communications capacity, and
Provide ubiquitous middle-mile capacity to drive down broadband costs nationwide and provide new options for underserved communities.
This investment will create thousands of skilled jobs, while enhancing the capacity and resilience of our critical networks, reducing costs to providers and consumers, and setting the stage for sustained long-term economic growth.

Under the GRID Broadband Act, the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration is charged with issuing competitive cost-shared federal grants to encourage the rapid development of a secure, nationwide broadband backbone on existing electric grid infrastructure. Recipients of GRID Broadband awards must use the funding to improve cybersecurity and smart grid technology on their electrical grid infrastructure, as well as increase middle-mile broadband capacity. Grant recipients must cover at least half of project costs, except for a qualifying not-for-profit utility or Native entity that is providing access to underserved or unserved communities.

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