An Office of Rural Broadband: We’ve Heard This Before

On February 12, 2019 Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced S.454 – The Office of Rural Broadband Act in the Senate. Co-sponsored by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Hoeven (R-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the bill would establish an Office of Rural Broadband in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The bill has now been referred to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Senator Cramer’s Office of Rural Broadband Act is the latest effort to coordinate rural broadband planning and policy. There are myriad agencies and departments with a hand in rural broadband – the FCC, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) chief among them. Coordination – or lack thereof – has been one of the major hurdles in broadband deployment and in crafting a national rural broadband strategy more generally.