The Department of Commerce is urging states to use some of their collective $42.5 billion in broadband infrastructure subsidy funds to help build the workforce needed to build out fiber-based broadband and close the digital divide.
That was one of the recommendations in a new report on information and communications technology (ICT) and protecting the communications high-tech equipment supply chain, including undersea cables, modems, fiber optic cables, bridges, routers, and gateways.
"[T]he COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions have exposed structural vulnerabilities in both domestic and global supply chains that have reduced the availability of critical ICT products and the resiliency of the ICT industry as a whole," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Thursday (February 24) about the report assessing the supply chain.
Businesses all over the country are having trouble attracting workers and the broadband technician sector is no exception.
The U.S. ICT industry’s struggle to find qualified workers threatens its ability to fulfill increased demand for key ICT products, impacting implementation of federal and state broadband programs as well as measures to increase manufacturing in the United States," the report concludes.
It also talks about the importance to broadband of continuing to lay fiber optic cable using domestic suppliers, saying that the industry "is currently facing challenges related to supply and demand shifts and bottlenecks."
One of the problems the report identifies is China's excess fiber capacity of hundreds of millions of kilometers that, combined with tens of millions of dollars per company in government subsidies, allows Chinese fiber exports to undercut prices in the U.S. and threaten the viability of domestic suppliers. ■
