The Efficacy of the Connect America Fund in Addressing US Internet Access Inequities
Haarika Manda, Varshika Srinivasavaradhan, Laasya Koduru, Kevin Zhang,, Xuanhe Zhou, Udit Paul, Elizabeth Belding, Arpit Gupta, Tejas N. Narechania

TL;DR
This study critically evaluates the Connect America Fund's effectiveness in reducing US internet access disparities, revealing significant gaps between reported and actual broadband availability and limited success in reaching underserved rural communities.
Contribution
It introduces a novel dataset combining ISP-reported and advertised broadband plans to assess CAF's real-world impact on broadband access and speed in underserved areas.
Findings
Serviceability rate is only 55%, dropping to 18% in some states.
Compliance rate with FCC speed threshold is only 33%.
Some CAF-funded addresses receive higher speeds than neighbors.
Abstract
Residential fixed broadband internet access in the United States (US) has long been distributed inequitably, drawing significant attention from researchers and policymakers. This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Connect America Fund (CAF), a key policy intervention aimed at addressing disparities in US internet access. CAF subsidizes the creation of new regulated broadband monopolies in underserved areas, aiming to provide comparable internet access, in terms of price and speed, to that available in urban regions. Oversight of CAF largely relies on data self-reported by internet service providers (ISPs), which is often questionable. We use the broadband-plan querying tool (BQT) to curate a novel dataset that complements ISP-reported information with ISP-advertised broadband plan details (download speed and monthly cost) on publicly accessible websites. Specifically, we query…
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Taxonomy
TopicsICT Impact and Policies
