Election 2024: What will the candidates do about the digital divide?

The US presidential election is in its final stretch. Before election day on November 5, Engadget is looking at where the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, stand on the most consequential tech issues of our day.

Broadband access in poorer and more rural communities has been a major campaign issue since 2008. Bridging the digital divide was a key component of Barack Obama’s platform. And, while far from perfect, his administration did a lot of work to grow the nation’s fiber-optic infrastructure, free up wireless spectrum and expand access to subsidies for low-income families. While successive administrations have promised to continue the work of bringing high-speed internet to the most underserved communities, the results have been disappointing. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have pledged to get Americans online, but political realities will make that goal difficult.

Kamala Harris

During the Biden administration, Harris has acted as a sort of unofficial broadband czar (similar to her other unofficial titles of AI czar and border czar). This means she is deeply involved with and expected to carry forward the current administration’s policies. That could give her a chance to salvage some sort of positive legacy from what is currently a rather spotty track record for Biden on broadband.

Under President Biden, the White House secured roughly $90 billion to close the digital divide, $42.5 billion of that specifically for BEAD, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program. This gives states money to fund the planning and buildout of broadband infrastructure, whether that be running new fiber to rural areas, installing Wi-Fi in low-income apartment complexes or training workers for new careers in telecommunications. Unfortunately, BEAD has been hampered by numerous delays, and very little of the money has actually been doled out. Virginia only received initial approval for access to $1.48 billion in funding in late July, despite having been first to file a request in September of 2023.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the slow and messy rollout of BEAD, but conservatives have been able to successfully turn it into a weapon against Harris. Stringent requirements around environmental impact, labor practices and affordable access have made BEAD an easy target for Republicans who see regulation and bureaucracy as the enemy of freedom and economic growth.

The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), which administers BEAD, has found itself on the defensive, claiming the program is on track. Though, it’s unlikely any projects funded by BEAD will break ground until well into 2025 if not later.

As an outgrowth of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, BEAD is a key part of President Biden’s (and by extension Vice President Harris’) legacy. A focus for a Harris administration will likely be speeding up the distribution of BEAD funds and accelerating the groundbreaking on projects like fiberoptic and 5G infrastructure. But it’s unlikely there will be dramatic policy shifts under her leadership.

Donald Trump

Similar to President Biden, Donald Trump made grand promises about expanding access to broadband, especially for rural communities, but largely failed to deliver. Not only that, but Democrats managed to turn that failure into a campaign weapon against him in 2020.

Under Trump and Ajit Pai, the FCC launched the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which promised $20.4 billion to expand rural broadband. However, it was merely a rebrand of an existing subsidy program established under Obama. The Trump administration’s efforts beyond that were far more modest than those of the Biden or Obama eras, and included initiatives like investing $1.3 billion through the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect Program.

Neither Trump nor the RNC have much to say about rural broadband or the digital divide this time around. That could suggest another term would again be defined by small-scale investments rather than large infrastructure programs. While the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from Project 2025, the document was drafted by a number of people in Trump’s orbit, including former staffers. So, it’s not a stretch to assume he might adopt some, if not many, of its policies.

That document focuses largely on what can be seen as one of the Trump administration’s wins on the technology front: 5G. Project 2025 calls for freeing up additional spectrum for wireless broadband and streamlining the permitting process. It calls for the FCC to pursue an aggressive strategy for freeing up the airwaves and selling them to commercial interests. It also, unsurprisingly, calls for scaling back regulations regarding things like environmental impact and restrictions on building on federal lands in hopes of spurring the construction of more cell sites. It also wants to speed up the approval process for satellite providers, like StarLink, which it sees as vital to America’s economic and national security interests.

Project 2025 calls for these efforts to be consolidated as part of a national broadband strategy. It cites a Government Accountability Office report from 2022, which states there are “over 100 programs administered by 15 agencies” as evidence of mismanagement and a potential for waste.