The biggest Internet service providers will dominate a $42.45 billion broadband grant program unless the Biden administration changes a rule requiring grant recipients to obtain a letter of credit from a bank, according to a joint statement from consumer advocacy groups, local government officials, and advocates for small ISPs.
The letter sent today to US government officials argues that “by establishing capital barriers too steep for all but the best-funded ISPs, the LOC [letter-of-credit requirement] shuts out the vast majority of entities the program claims to prioritize: small and community-centered ISPs, minority and women-owned ISPs, nonprofits, and municipalities.”
The rule is part of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that’s being administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
I sure did hear a lot of neo-lib politicians in my area saying that same thing when there was a push for Medicare For All. “It’s confusing and nobody knows what it means” is what some centrist dem congress people kept saying where I’m from. A few years on, now that the steam has been tapped and those same politicians are putting “healthcare for all” in their literature. The co-option against progressive policy is coming from inside the party and old railway Joe (not a progressive) outlawed a strike for… the railway workers.
Also, not seeing this abandoning of labor to focus on race you speak of. People flooding the streets over police murdering POC isn’t a political maneuver. Could you lay out where your seeing this focus on race and not labor from progressives?