The Biden Administration says Wisconsin is getting a little over one billion dollars in the next few years to expand high-speed internet to the roughly 650,000 state residents without broadband service.
The money for Wisconsin — part of $42 billion that was announced across the U.S. on Monday — comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin supported, but Republican Sen. Ron Johnson voted against.
Baldwin is up for reelection next year.
White House Senior Adviser Mitch Landrieu told Wisconsin news reporters on a conference call that over the last eighteen months better maps of unserved areas have been created.
"Each state then got a chance to challenge those maps, and as a consequence of that challenge, we were able based on a formula to come up with the awards. Now what's going to happen over the next couple of months, is that the governors, in this instance Gov. (Tony) Evers — his team.," Landrieu says. "He's got an internet office he's created as a result of the President's request, is working with the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) and the Department of Commerce to make sure they give us a plan. When that plan is approved, Commerce will allocate twenty percent of this money and they'll get to work."
Landrieu says 80% of the work will be laying fiberoptic cable. Wisconsin Republicans legislators, when rejecting more state funding for broadband, recently argued that especially in rural areas. there's a shortage of work crews to do the job.
The Biden Administration acknowledges it may take another seven years to get every household in U.S. connected to broadband.
Baldwin, also on the call with Landrieu, says there's another 650-thousand state residents who can't afford higher-speed internet. But many of them are eligible under another federal effort called the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) — for $30 per month discounts on their internet bill.
