Bernie Sanders unveils a “High-Speed Internet for All” plan with $150B to build publicly owned broadband networks, wants to break up ISPs like Comcast and AT&T
- Bernie Sanders announces a plan to expand rural broadband internet access and break up giant internet service providers.
CNBCJacob Pramuk
Context & Ripple Effects
When Sanders rolled out his $150B High-Speed Internet for All plan in December 2019, publicly owned broadband was a fringe position in a Democratic field of incremental connectivity proposals. The arc that followed is what makes this worth tracking: within sixteen months, Senate and House Democrats put forward a $94B affordability-and-access proposal, and then Biden folded $100B for high-speed broadband into the American Jobs Plan.
First-order effects
Comcast and AT&T move from lobbying targets to explicit restructuring targets — the plan names them as ISPs to be broken up while directing capital toward municipally owned networks that would compete with their last-mile monopolies.
Second-order effects
The cable industry treats the successor policy as an existential threat rather than a budget line: its objection to Biden's version centers on language favoring fiber and prioritizing locally owned networks, per the industry's own assessment that the plan is a grave threat.
Third-order effects
If the fiber-first, municipal-priority framing survives negotiation, US broadband structurally shifts from consolidated private last-mile ownership toward a mixed public-private model — with incumbent ISPs' pricing power diluted wherever public networks are built.
The trend: Federal broadband policy has moved from subsidizing private ISP buildouts toward public ownership and fiber-first funding, with Sanders' 2019 plan as the template the 2021 White House proposal scaled up.
Just as President Roosevelt fundamentally made America more equal by bringing electricity to every community, urban and rural, over 80 years ago, as president, I will do the same with high-speed internet. https://berniesanders.com/...
“It is time to take the internet out of the hands of monopolies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T and put it in the hands of the people where it belongs”. https://www.cnbc.com/...
I fully support breaking up internet and cable companies. Just like health insurance companies, I don't know anyone who likes their provider. Additionally all FCC licenses for media titans need review and revoke them if they do not serve the public good. https://twitter.com/...
“High-speed internet service must be treated as the new electricity — a public utility that everyone deserves as a basic human right.” https://twitter.com/...
AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are also going to REALLY love Bernie's plan to kill off those 19 protectionist state laws they use to ban towns and cities from building better broadband networks. For sure. pic.twitter.com/Hnnln2cGR2
AT&T Time Warner and Comcast NBC Universal are going to LOVE Bernie's plan to break up vertically-integrated telecom/media monopolies. pic.twitter.com/MeOIAAzB0M
Seriously this Bernie broadband plan is as if somebody tapped into an AT&T executives worst possible nightmare and made it whole, with a little extra salt.
OSHEAN built a fiber optic network in #RI with Obama-era stimulus money. It's in the public right of way on the poles. I'd wager it's barely at 10% capacity. What would it take to bring that high speed access to everyone, not just OSHEAN's members. https://twitter.com/...
Bernie Sanders is releasing a “High-Speed Internet for All” plan that would invest $150b for states/municipalities to build publicly owned, open-source broadband. It would also break up internet company monopolies, among other things. https://berniesanders.com/...
this is easily one of the most important proposals bernie's come out with this cycle. the battle for the internet is the backdrop for so much of the future of left politics in america, and it's brilliant imo that he's finally drawing a line in the sand here https://twitter.com/..…
A lot going on here in the details but preempting state laws that ban municipal broadband (one of the many aspects of this proposal) could help a lot of people at zero cost. https://twitter.com/...
The proposal would also break up what the campaign calls “internet service provider and cable monopolies,” stop service providers from offering content and end what it calls “anticompetitive mergers.” https://www.cnbc.com/...
In his new ‘High-Speed Internet for All’ proposal, Bernie Sanders calls to treat the internet like a public utility instead of a ‘price gouging profit machine’ for companies like Comcast and Verizon. https://www.cnbc.com/...