- USF at risk as policymakers fumble funding, said former Treasury Dep’t official Joseph Wender
- Anchor institutions could be left behind in fiber push, he warns
- Wender touted $10B Capital Projects Fund as success story compared to BEAD
FIBER CONNECT, NASHVILLE – It’s not just BEAD delays we have to worry about. The Universal Service Fund (USF) is also stuck in limbo and the federal government has no clue how to handle all the funding involved, according to Joseph Wender, executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition.
Wender, who was formerly director of the $10 billion Capital Projects Fund (CPF), put it bluntly at a Fiber Connect keynote that “Washington does not know best when it comes to deploying billions of dollars.”
The Supreme Court is currently deliberating over the constitutionality of USF, but policymakers for years have debated on how to keep the program funded, from taxing Big Tech to allocating money in Congress’ budget.
The latter option, Wender argued, “is an effort to starve and kill the program.”
“There is nothing predictable, sustainable or long-term about congressional appropriations. All you have to do is watch the news,” he said.
Compared to BEAD, Wender believes the USF is “overlooked” in today’s conversations around broadband access, particularly the program’s impact on community anchor institutions.
He said approximately 100,000 U.S. schools receive support from the USF’s E-Rate program, which provides discounted telecom services and internet access. That equates to about 50 million students, plus libraries and health facilities.
“Think about how hard and how difficult” school and hospital budgets are, Wender went on to say. “Without this money, they could shut off the internet.”
Lessons learned from Capital Projects
In his tenure heading the CPF, Wender said he wasn’t running one program but “loosely overseeing 50,” as states were in the driver’s seat.
Since CPF launched in 2022, the U.S. Treasury has deployed the majority of the program's funding to states, territories and tribal lands. About 90% of the CPF’s $10 billion is being used for fiber deployments and the networks are required to scale up to symmetrical 100 Mbps, which Wender said is higher than BEAD’s 100/20 Mbps threshold.
But as he pointed out CPF’s success, he argued fiber for anchor institutions shouldn’t be swept under the rug in favor of deployments to support emerging technologies like AI.
While listening to the various Fiber Connect sessions, Wender noted “all I’ve been hearing about is AI, quantum, the 21st century economy, competing with our other global rivals.”
“Do you think that means we should have slower speeds at schools and libraries? Do you think we should have less bandwidth for rural health clinics? That’s completely the wrong direction for us to be moving in,” he concluded.
Catch up on all the news from Fiber Connect 2025 here.