The broadband industry is eagerly waiting for $1.16 billion in federal funds to be activated for projects in Pennsylvania. However, telecommunication providers are weighing their anticipation with the reality of burdensome regulations.

Around 95% of Pennsylvanians have 100/20 mbps internet speeds. But the other 5%, around 250,000 locations, are still saddled with slow speeds— which impacts schools, hospitals, businesses, and personal lives.

“It's so important that people have this connectivity, because it allows us to be competitive. It allows us to have opportunity,” Marissa Mitrovich said, public policy vice president for the Fiber Broadband Association.

Broadband speeds require modern, physical infrastructure; often fiber wires, dug into the ground. That initial cost of construction is expensive—thus why rural areas have been left behind.

“Would you go and deploy broadband where there's one house every ten miles? Or would you go somewhere where there's a house every, you know, hundred feet?” Steve Samara said, president of the Pennsylvania Telephone Association.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD) is a federal grant created to incentivize projects in those previously ignored areas.

“The concept is, let's make a business case to go where it doesn’t make a business case to go on your own,” Samara said.

“These people still deserve to be connected,” Mitrovich said, “and these federal dollars are using public private partnership to deploy to the last mile."

Pennsylvania got $1.16 billion to distribute. As the project applications and approvals continue to roll in, there are some competitors in the market who are juggling out dated red tape while trying to plan and compete for the future.

Telecommunication providers are regulated by Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission (PUC); with many of the standards dating back to when land line phone companies were mostly monopolized, with government management to keep them fair for consumers.

“There are things there that just don't belong on the books anymore,” Samara said. "My member companies, which is the rural local exchange carriers, are the only segment of the telecom industry that's regulated by the PUC."

"We have to file tariffs [detailed service reports] with the PUC. When complaints come through, we have to go through a litigious process with the PUC,” Samara said.

In anticipation of the federal funds, Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill has introduced S.B. 491 to strip some of the regulations away. While service guarantees and some service quality measurements would remain, other tasks would be removed.

“Without some movement on the regulatory front, my rural constituents and rural constituents all across the Commonwealth are not going to receive the full benefits of not only those federal broadband dollars, but those being vested by the collects themselves,” Phillips-Hill said.