Federal officials have approved the state of Arizona’s plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to improve internet access in communities across the state.
Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson joined Gov. Katie Hobbs to announce the approval, which will allow the state to spend $993 million in federal dollars.
“Generations before us did very big things — they connected everybody in America with electricity and with water. They built the Interstate highway system,” Davidson said. “This is our generation's big infrastructure moment.”
Part of the Biden administration’s “Internet for all plan,” Arizona’s allocation is part of a larger $42-billion pot approved by Congress in 2021 as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law.
That larger program — called the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program — prioritizes bringing internet access to unserved communities (defined as those will access to internet speeds under 25 megabits per second download speeds) and underserved communities (places with access to speeds of 100 megabits per second or less).
Hobbs said plans detailing where the state plans to use the money are forthcoming, but she said, broadly speaking, it will go towards helping all Arizonans throughout the state connect to affordable, high-speed internet, echoing the Biden administration’s goal to ensure all Americans are connected to high-speed broadband by 2030.
“Our plan is to expand broadband infrastructure across the state, so every community that is currently underserved that needs this resource — our plan includes them,” Hobbs said.
She said the state conducted community outreach with tribes, local governments and counties to develop initial plans.
The announcement comes after Republicans criticized the Biden administration for moving too slowly.
“In 2021, the Biden administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Republican, wrote on social media in June. “Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.”
Davidson and Sandip Bhowmick, the Arizona Commerce Authority’s broadband director, confirmed Arizona won’t begin connecting residents to the Internet using the money until at least 2025.
But Davidson pushed back against critics, saying the Biden administration needed time to properly vet states’ proposals before approving the funds.
“I'll just say this was exactly the timeline that was contemplated by Congress when it passed the bipartisan infrastructure law,” Davidson said. “It's a complicated program. There's billions of dollars at stake, and I think there was a very clear direction from Congress that, before we write billion-dollar checks, we have to make sure that there's a good plan in place and good maps in place.”
Bhowmick said the state of Arizona will spend the next year fielding applications to distribute the money to local governments, internet service providers and nonprofits that will ultimately bring Internet service to underserved communities.
He said the state’s plan will divide the state into 75 to 80 different “project areas,” and it will take two years to build out the network after the money is allocated.
“So you will see a major impact of this funding on the ground once we allocate this funding in the next 365 days, and households will get connected based on every single project area after that,” he said.
