“Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
This is a great bill. It creates a slight public subsidy for broadband, but the total amount of subsidy is minimized by tying it to digging that's already going to be done. This should be extended to power line and water pipe construction. No reason you can't put in some dark fiber while you've got someone up there hanging new power line (which I imagine is way more expensive).Most importantly, it minimizes market distortion. Inatead of making it more expensive to deploy broadband (which is the ironic side effect of many broadband deployment policies), it makes it cheaper for competitors to enter the market.