The Trump administration’s changes to a federal grant program will lead to a weaker broadband system for Kansas, multiple internet experts warn.
In June 2023, under the Biden administration, $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment grants were handed to 56 states and territories. Kansas got $451 million.
The goal was to build out high-speed internet using whatever technology was best, though fiber-optic cables are considered the gold standard of internet infrastructure.
States could use any technology that worked best. Fiber delivers the fastest internet speeds but is more expensive to install. The savings come decades down the line when that infrastructure outlasts other types of internet projects.
Then came the 2024 election, and the Trump administration wanted to drive costs down.
“To guarantee that American taxpayers obtain the greatest return on their broadband investment … the full force of the competitive marketplace must be utilized,” the new guidance said.
The administration told states to rethink how they spend the money and urged them to focus on any type of project that increases internet access. In Kansas, that has meant less fiber investment.
“The overarching policy went from what are we going to get that is the best value … (to) what is the cheapest thing we can do,” said Erik Sartorius, executive director of the Communications Coalition of Kansas. “As you see in your own life and in road building or anything else, cheap does not generally equal the best solution.”
The grant could fund a variety of infrastructure projects:
- Fiber projects, which have a cable buried in the ground or hung on poles.
- Fixed wireless, with devices like cellphone towers that deliver internet.
- And low Earth orbital satellites that beam down the internet from space, like Elon Musk’s Starlink.
In response to the Trump administration’s instructions, Kansas submitted a grant proposal requesting to spend just $252 million. Under the proposal, 50.8% of projects would be fixed wireless or a hybrid of fixed wireless and fiber, 46.2% of projects would be fiber and 3% of projects would be satellites.
The Beacon asked for a copy of the original grant proposal under Biden-era rules, but the Kansas Broadband Office didn’t reply to those requests.
Matthew Godinez, the assistant secretary of quality places for the Kansas Department of Commerce, said he isn’t sure how much less fiber Kansas will invest in, but there will be less.
The project does fund rural internet programs, but there are also projects in metro settings where some people still lack quality internet. Twelve percent of Kansas households don’t have broadband.
The final grant proposal still has to be approved by the federal government, so the amount of fiber could be tweaked more.
Godinez said if money were no issue, every household in Kansas would get fiber internet.
“The amount of capacity on that fiber cable is almost unlimited,” said Larry Thompson, the CEO of Vantage Point Solutions, a company that does engineering and consulting work for rural broadband providers. “You won’t outgrow that in the next 30 to 50 years.”
That’s important because the internet infrastructure being built for today is for projects that don’t even exist yet, he said. Broadband was being installed in 2002, before the rise of smartphones and TV streaming services.
The demand for internet in the home rose and those projects needed to meet the demand. The future will likely need even more internet capacity as AI or virtual reality becomes more popular.
Kansas is also well suited for fiber projects. The cables can be buried, and Kansas has good soil to dig into — just ask all the farmers planting fields of crops. Wireless towers are certainly useful, but they have a shelf life of about five years, Thompson said.
The towers themselves can stand for decades, but the electronics on them need to be replaced more often. Sometimes, that’s because weather wears down components or a tree grows too large and blocks the signal.
Homes also need antennas to get a wireless signal. Bad weather or terrain can slow down speeds. Entire neighborhoods also have to share that wireless signal. The speeds slow down as more people use the service.
Thompson also doubts that wireless towers could deliver the required speeds.
“If you want to give your rural customers the same service that they could get in Kansas City … you would give them fiber,” he said. “In those metropolitan areas, it’s gigabit speeds they can get. If you’re in a rural area and you say, ‘I think these guys should be second-class broadband citizens’ … then you’re going to go wireless.”
Sartorius, with the Communications Coalition of Kansas, said each technology has its place. But he said the state isn’t getting its money’s worth with this grant program and it will drive less economic development.
The most recent grant proposal would use only half the allocated grant money. There is a chance Kansas can keep that money and spend it elsewhere, but a bill in Congress has already been introduced to claw back any unused funds.
Sartorius said the Kansas Broadband Office did all it could with the rules in front of them.
“Being able to do things in a cost-effective manner is important,” he said. “When we look at this in five to seven years … we are going to look at this and wish about what could have been.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
