NY Broadband Program Is Heavily Funding Overbuilding: ACLP
Only about 10% of the locations being passed through projects funded by New York's Municipal Infrastructure Program are unserved or underserved, meaning the state is financing overbuilding almost 90% of the time, according to an analysis from the New York Law School's Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute. In a blog post Thursday, ACLP Director Michael Santorelli and Senior Fellow Alex Karras said that kind of overbuilding diverts funds from the 61,000 remaining unserved and underserved locations in the state.
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Of the 26,000 locations that will be passed by networks built with the state program's first round of funding, 3,700 were unserved or underserved, Santorelli and Karras wrote. "This is textbook 'overbuilding,' which is a wasteful use of scarce public funding." Of the 59,000 locations that second-round funding will reach, 5,900 are unserved or underserved, they wrote.
New York state potentially could lose its BEAD allocation, as NTIA has indicated that it won't release money to states where BEAD-funded projects have their rates regulated, Santorelli and Karras noted. If New York loses its BEAD funding due to its rate regulation law, or if those funds are delayed, spending first- and second-round Municipal Infrastructure Program funding on duplicative broadband networks "will seem particularly shortsighted," they said.