Trump’s Rural Broadband Goal Won’t Be Easy, and It’ll Be Costly
- Price of nationwide expansion estimated at $80 billion
- Advocates differ on the government’s role in the process
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters the White House hasn’t calculated how much it may invest in broadband.
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President Donald Trump has promised to expand broadband service to rural areas as part of his $1 trillion nationwide infrastructure plan. That may be easier said than done.
It would take an estimated $80 billion to extend broadband to all U.S. areas that lack it, but the White House has initially proposed spending just $25 billion over 10 years on rural infrastructure needs. At the same time, policy experts disagree about how best to expand rural broadband -- and what responsibility government has to subsidize it.