The State of the Broadband Dream

 You’re reading the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society’s Weekly Digest, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) broadband stories of the week. The digest is delivered via e-mail each Friday.

Round-Up for the Week of January 26-30, 2026

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession,” a continuation of a series of reports exploring the ways that policies and practices in the United States are structured to consistently disadvantage Black and Latino workers and families. In its 2026 edition, the Joint Center finds that the Trump Administration’s policy changes in 2025 undermine the structural supports designed to broaden broadband access and adoption and could reduce the number of Black households with internet access. At the same time, President Trump shifted away from precautionary artificial intelligence (AI) regulation toward a more deregulatory posture. The rescission marks a sharp departure from the prior focus on civil rights, transparency, and safety in federal AI policy.

We look at the Joint Center’s findings on broadband, AI, and the impacts of policy on Black communities.

The State of Broadband Policy

Under the Trump Administration, there have been substantial shifts in both broadband access and affordability policies.

The BEAD Program

Launched under the Biden Administration as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program allocated $42.5 billion to states and territories to expand broadband infrastructure, with an emphasis on connecting unserved and underserved areas by prioritizing fiber-optic networks for reliability and high capacity. States were required to submit initial and final proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The BEAD program also included requirements for affordability plans for low-income households and compliance with environmental and labor standards. By early 2025, however, only a few states had final proposals approved, and no widespread deployments had been completed, drawing criticism over bureaucratic delays.

In June 2025, the Trump Administration introduced wide-ranging reforms to BEAD under its “Benefit of the Bargain” policy notice, fundamentally reshaping the program’s priorities and implementation. The Trump Administration adopted a technology-neutral approach that allows satellite and fixed wireless solutions to compete with fiber for funding, rescinded previously approved final proposals, required new competitive bidding rounds, removed affordability and regulatory requirements such as low-cost service plans and certain environmental and labor mandates, and gave subrecipients broader flexibility to remove high-cost locations from project areas.

School Bus Wi-Fi and Internet Hotspots

In September 2025, the Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 to remove school bus Wi-Fi and internet hotspot services from eligibility for federal funding under the Universal Service Fund’s E-Rate program for schools and libraries, reversing expansions adopted under the Biden administration that had allowed schools and libraries to receive discounts for both services. Under the new ruling, districts will no longer be reimbursed for using E-Rate funds to provide Wi-Fi on buses or loan out mobile hotspots to students and community members, even though demand for these services was high and millions of dollars in requests had already been submitted for the 2025-2026 school year.

Digital Equity Act Grant Program

In May 2025, the Trump administration abruptly canceled all Digital Equity Act grant funding, disrupting or halting a wide range of community-based programs designed to help underserved residents gain digital skills and meaningful online access. The $2.75 billion program—part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—was intended to support state implementation of digital equity plans and fund competitive grants for nonprofit organizations to deliver training in areas such as job applications, telehealth use, and online navigation, particularly in rural and low-income communities.

Instead, President Trump labeled the program “racist” and refused to release funds that had already been awarded, leaving states and organizations unable to proceed with planned initiatives and forcing some to scale back or cancel efforts to get people online. The cancellations have prompted lawsuits from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and more than 20 states challenging the termination of grant funding.

FCC Broadband Labels

In November 2025, the FCC proposed rolling back portions of the broadband label requirements—rules originally designed to give consumers clear, standardized information about price, fees, speeds, and promotional terms. On November 3, the FCC announced it was considering eliminating certain disclosure elements and sought comment on additional ways to “streamline” the label framework to reduce compliance burdens on providers while preserving some consumer transparency benefits.

Weakening broadband label requirements risks reducing price clarity for consumers who already face steep affordability barriers. Because cost is frequently cited as a primary reason for not having home broadband—particularly in parts of the Black Rural South—scaling back these transparency tools may make it harder for families to compare plans, detect hidden fees, and make informed choices, potentially widening existing gaps in broadband adoption.

Universal Service Fund

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling in FCC v. Consumers’ Research resolved the most significant legal threat the USF has faced in its nearly 30-year history. In this case, Consumers’ Research and other petitioners argued that Congress had unconstitutionally delegated its power by allowing the FCC to rely on the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to collect and administer USF contributions. Although the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the statute—finding that Congress provided sufficient guidance and that the FCC’s oversight remained intact—the lawsuit spotlighted deep concerns about the aging contribution system and the long-term sustainability of the USF.

While the decision put legal questions to rest, the Joint Center has stressed that legal validity alone does not guarantee that the USF is equipped to meet modern broadband needs. In formal comments to the USF Working Group, the Joint Center emphasized that any reform effort must center on affordability and equity, noting that cost remains the primary barrier to broadband adoption for low-income households, including Black families.

The Joint Center urged policymakers to create a permanent, robust affordability benefit within the USF—either by substantially strengthening Lifeline (the USF program for supporting low-income families) or integrating an Affordable Connectivity Program-like subsidy—so that households are not left without support as broadband becomes essential for work, education, and civic participation. The Joint Center also called for a modernized, sustainable contribution system that does not raise costs for low-income consumers, as well as a transparent, evidence-based process to ensure that reforms genuinely advance digital opportunity for Black communities and other underserved populations.

Broadband’s Impact on Black Communities

The altering priorities in the implementation of the BEAD Program away from equity scoring, cancellation of the Digital Equity Act, removal of mobile hotspot and school bus Wi-Fi connectivity from E-Rate eligibility, and weakened broadband pricing transparency requirements undermine the structural supports designed to broaden access and adoption and could reduce the number of Black households with internet access. Future analysis will give greater insight into the quantitative impact of these changes in broadband policy.

The Trump administration’s revisions of the BEAD Program in 2025 represent a major shift in national broadband strategy. While the shift toward cost efficiency and technology neutrality is intended to accelerate deployment, these changes may slow implementation and degrade service quality, particularly in rural communities. The Joint Center has long documented that Black residents—especially those in the rural South—are more likely to live in areas with inadequate broadband infrastructure, and therefore risks widening existing racial disparities in access, affordability, and long-term digital opportunity.

Supporters of the recently ended bus Wi-Fi and hotspot financing argue that this investment was an essential tool for narrowing the “homework gap”—the well-documented phenomenon in which students without reliable home internet struggle to complete assignments. Recent analysis shows that nearly 1 in 3 Black students lack high-speed home internet, making them significantly more vulnerable to this gap than their white peers. Critics of the FCC’s rollback warn that removing E-Rate support will force districts to absorb new costs, reduce access to mobile connectivity solutions, and ultimately widen existing racial and socioeconomic inequities in students’ abilities to learn outside the classroom.

The cancellation of the Digital Equity Act programs has outsized consequences for Black communities because these grants were specifically designed to close the digital skills and adoption gaps that disproportionately affect Black households. Black Americans are less likely to have home broadband, digital literacy training, or access to devices—barriers that limit educational attainment, job opportunities, access to telehealth, and civic participation.

Many of the now-canceled programs targeted exactly these gaps through community-based training, affordable device programs, and outreach led by trusted local institutions. Without this infrastructure of support, Black residents in both urban and rural areas lose critical pathways to meaningful online participation, deepening long-standing inequities in employment, health, financial security, and democratic engagement.

Weakening broadband label requirements risks reducing price clarity for consumers who already face steep affordability barriers. Because Black households disproportionately report cost as the primary reason for not having home broadband, specifically in the Black Rural South, scaling back these transparency tools could make it harder for families to compare plans, detect hidden fees, and make informed choices—ultimately widening existing racial gaps in broadband adoption.

The State of AI Policy

Despite the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, the United States does not yet have a federal regulatory framework to govern its development or use. In this vacuum, the Trump Administration has advanced a series of actions that clarify its stance and signal an approach to AI governance centered primarily on accelerating innovation and reducing regulatory constraints, often without addressing how AI systems may reinforce or amplify existing inequities.

The Trump administration’s 2025 AI policy shifts have already produced indirect impacts on African American communities by weakening the enforcement-and-monitoring infrastructure that previously constrained discriminatory outcomes. Prior to rescission, federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of Labor, were actively monitoring for algorithmic bias.

These governance changes are particularly consequential given the expanding use of AI-driven tools in domains that disproportionately affect Black communities, including hiring, policing, and healthcare. Without clear federal standards for bias testing, transparency, or accountability—and with reduced space for state-level action—the likelihood increases that discriminatory impacts may go undetected or unaddressed as AI adoption accelerates. In this context, these 2025 policy shifts do not merely reflect achange in regulatory philosophy; they alter the conditions under which inequities can be identified, measured, and remedied.

Prior to the release of President Trump’s AI Action Plan, the Joint Center submitted comments to the White House urging the administration to incorporate explicit equity safeguards, including impact assessments for algorithmic discrimination, community engagement requirements, and accountability measures to prevent harm to Black communities and other groups disproportionately affected by automated decision-making. Without these provisions, the federal AI strategy risks accelerating AI deployment without the guardrails needed to ensure AI systems advance rather than undermine racial equity.

Identifying Harms and Working Towards Solutions

The first year of the second Trump Administration has produced a documented pattern of regression across nearly every domain examined in the Joint Center’s report. The elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives came without alternative frameworks to address documented disparities. Data collection requirements were rescinded without better measurement tools to replace them. Civil rights enforcement was rolled back even as private-sector compliance weakened.

Yet this report documents not only harm but also the pathways for response. Federal policy reversals create openings to build stronger accountability mechanisms, direct support programs, and equity safeguards than those dismantled. Congressional action, regulatory reform, and restored enforcement capacity can address longstanding structural barriers. At the state level, attorneys general have existing authority to enforce consumer protection laws that federal agencies no longer prioritize. Coalitions spanning labor, faith, advocacy, and industry are demanding accountability mechanisms that make disparities visible and measurable.

Read the Joint Center’s full report here.

Quick Bits

Weekend Reads

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

Feb 1-2––To Have and Have Not: Growing Asymmetries in Communications Technology (University of Colorado Boulder)

Feb 3-5––Net Inclusion 2026 (National Digital Inclusion Alliance)

Feb 4-5––INCOMPAS Policy Summit 2026 (INCOMPAS)

Feb 11––BEAD Savings Listening Session (National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)

Feb 18––February 2026 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting (Federal Communications Commission)

Mar 5––Telecom Act at 30: Universal Service as the North Star (Benton Institute for Broadband & Society)