From all across the country, I’m hearing that communities without broadband are tired of waiting for a broadband solution. Local broadband advocates and politicians tell me that folks with little or no broadband are hounding them about when they are going to see a broadband solution.

A large part of the frustration is that folks have heard that broadband is coming to rural America but aren’t seeing any local progress or improvement. A big part of this frustration is that folks aren’t given realistic time frames for when they might see a solution. Politicians all gladly told the public that they had voted to solve rural broadband when the IIJA infrastructure legislation was enacted in November 2021. But almost nobody told folks the actual timelines that go along with the broadband funding.

Consider the timeline to build broadband as a result of various kinds of funding:

• There was a recent round of ReConnect funding awarded. It generally takes 4- 6 months to get the paperwork straight after accepting a ReConnect award, and then grant winners have four years to build the network. Some of the folks in areas of the ReConnect awards that were recently awarded won’t get broadband until 2026. Most won’t see any broadband until 2024 or 2025.
• The best timelines are with state broadband grants. Most of those awards require grant recipients to complete networks in two or three years. A lot of these grant programs were either recently awarded or will be awarded in the coming spring. The winners of these state grants will have until the end of 2024 or 2025 to complete the network construction, depending on the state and the specific grant.
• The longest timeline comes from the FCC’s RDOF program. The FCC approved a lot of RDOF recipients in 2021 and again in 2022. A 2021 RDOF recipient has six years to build the full broadband solution—starting with 2022, the year after the award. A recipient of a 2021 RDOF award must build 40% of the network by the end of 2024, 60% of the deployment by the end of 2025, 80% of the network by the end of 2026, and 100% of the network by the end of 2027. At the end of 2027, the FCC will publish a final list of locations in the RDOF area, and the ISP has until the end of 2029 to reach any locations that have not already been covered. For an RDOF award made in 2022, add a year to each of these dates.
• The big unknown is the giant $42.5 billion BEAD grants. We know that grant recipients will have four years to construct a network. But we don’t know yet when these grants might be awarded. It’s starting to look like grant applications might be due near the end of 2023 or even into 2024. This likely means grant awards in 2024. There will likely be an administrative pause for paperwork before the four-year time clock starts. My best estimate is that the bulk of BEAD construction will occur in 2025 and 2026, but BEAD grant projects won’t have to be completed until sometime in 2028 and maybe a little later in some cases.

In all cases, ISPs can build earlier than the dates cited above. ISPs realize that the longer they delay construction, the higher the likely cost of the construction. But some grants have built-in delays, such as completing an environmental study before any grant funds are released. Many ISPs are going to suffer from supply chain issues with materials and labor and might not be able to speed up a lot.

The big problem is that people without good broadband want a solution now, not years from now. A family with a freshman in high school doesn’t want to hear that a broadband solution won’t reach them until after that student graduates from high school. People are getting frustrated by announcements from state and local politicians telling them a solution is coming—especially since most announcements aren’t being truthful about the possible timeline. Unfortunately, politicians like to deliver the good news but don’t want to be the ones to announce that faster broadband might reach folks between 2025 and 2028.

Folks are further frustrated when they hear that local governments are creating partnerships or giving grants to ISPs from ARPA funding—but again, with no immediate action or disclosures of the timeline. I am the last person in the world to give advice to local politicians—but I know if I didn’t have broadband at my home, I’d want to hear the truth about when it’s coming. This must be tough for rural politicians who have negotiated partnerships with good ISPs but know that a broadband solution is still likely years in the future.