As the White House makes an effort to champion deals with American industries, broadband is getting its moment in the spotlight. Last week, AT&T unveiled its acquisition of Lumen’s Mass Markets fiber internet business, a move that will extend AT&T’s reach to millions from Iowa to the Pacific Northwest. The deal will bring vital connectivity to rural areas that have long been promised — but largely left behind — by the Biden administration’s unsuccessful broadband initiatives.
In 2021, the federal government allocated $42.5 billion to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program (BEAD), which promised to expand access to high-speed internet, namely in rural communities. As of mid-2025, not a single home has been connected using these funds while administrative overhead continues to accumulate.
Meanwhile, the AT&T acquisition is part of the company’s plan to reach 60 million locations by the end of the decade (doubling their coverage). Unlike government programs bogged down by bureaucracy and competing interests, AT&T promises to deliver high-speed internet to underserved communities — and soon.
This is a perfect example of how communities flourish when private companies are free to invest, compete and build without excessive red tape. Not only will people benefit from faster, better services, but the expansion project will spur job creation in several states. The enhancement of critical infrastructure for the internet and telecom services, which people rely on for work, school and social activities, will have immeasurable spillover effects on education, family life and the economy.
We should see more deals like this — not more costly federal programs or subsidies that burn through taxpayer dollars with minimal results.
Further privatization and deregulation of the broadband market will pave the way for this. The recently passed House budget has begun this push, with the auctioning off spectrum held by the Department of Defense. The administration aims to take a step further by proposing cuts to the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect program, which provides loans and grants for rural broadband development.
The next step is to prevent the government from interfering in mergers and acquisitions that will foster greater efficiency, technological innovation and economic growth in the telecommunications sector. Under the Biden administration, increased regulatory scrutiny from revised merger guidelines prevented these deals from happening. These guidelines remain in place and continue to pose a threat to business.
Our broadband future should be driven by the demands of the people so it can ebb and flow with the emergence of artificial intelligence and moving population patterns. Bureaucrats in Washington cannot effectively predict the endless shifts of human behavior, especially not in a turbulent age of new tech.
After the last decade was bogged down by the net-neutrality debate and the BEAD program, 2026 is poised to become a make-or-break year for the telecom industry. The digital economy is exploding, and America is hungry for speed, scale and serious infrastructure — with a potential spectrum shortage looming. AT&T’s acquisition is just the tipping point of a free market for broadband.
It’s time for policymakers to stop treating rural America like a political talking point and start investing in its rural infrastructure. Americans don’t need more government-controlled spectrum or ineffective market subsidies. It’s time to let capital be put to work so the private sector can deliver. The future of American broadband is bright — if we let it be.
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Sam Raus is a resident writing fellow at Young Voices. He wrote this for .
