For Alaska's rural broadband, federal permits are the bottleneck

Alaska has more than $1 billion in hand to wire its rural communities for broadband. But in a state that's roughly 60 percent federal land, the harder problem may be getting permission to build across it.

That was the broadband industry's message at a Senate hearing Thursday. Jonathan Spalter, who heads the trade group USTelecom, told a Commerce subcommittee that the barrier to modern rural connectivity "isn't technology, it isn't investment, nor is it our will. We're ready. It's government, specifically permitting." He described one company waiting two years for a federal permit amid a dispute over whether a forest existed in the Chihuahuan Desert.

For Alaska, where federal agencies control most of the ground fiber has to cross, that's a direct problem. Spalter urged Congress to pass three bills aimed at speeding federal permits, and senators from other heavily federal states pressed the same point.

Not everyone treated the money as settled. Nebraska regulator Dan Watermeyer warned, "We must continue funding rural buildout or this technology simply won't be available for all who need it." Sen. Ben Ray Luján said recent changes to the $42.5 billion federal BEAD broadband program — the same program Alaska's funding flows from — have steered investment away from fiber and "injected significant delays."

Asked whether companies with full access to that money could build more fiber, Spalter said they obviously would. Federal guidance on the program's next phase, he said, may not arrive until September.