Michigan lawmakers want to connect everyone to high-speed, broadband internet. And they have billions of dollars to do it. But their plan to do so isn’t a good one. In fact, it is almost guaranteed to spend too much money to connect very few people, and to take a long time doing so.

The Michigan High Speed Internet office (MIHI) recently laid out the status of its plan in testimony before a state House committee.

Michigan has two primary programs: the state’s ROBIN (or Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks) grand program, and the federal BEAD (or Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program. Both are almost entirely funded by taxpayers through a mix of state, local and federal funding. In total, ROBIN is set to spend about $450 million while BEAD is funded at $1.6 billion for Michigan.

Right now, 94% of Michigan households have access to high-speed internet. That leaves 6%, or 200,000 Michiganders, as “unserved.” These programs are intended to connect this group of residents.

But in its testimony, the MIHI office moved the goal posts. A higher percentage of Michigan households have access to speeds of under 100 Mbps, and some have access to lightning-fast “gig” internet. So state officials are targeting money at these households and community organizations.

The ROBIN program was funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act while BEAD money comes from a separate federal broadband program. Both were passed in 2021. Yet little has actually been done with the program.

ROBIN, which was started as part of “emergency” rescue spending during the COVID lockdowns, connects only 17,000 households. The officials said it will be a best-case scenario of 72,000 by 2027. Even if successful, this will be at a cost of $3,000 to $10,000 per household.

BEAD money is rolling out even slower. The Biden Administration and Michigan officials have interpreted this money as going to “unserved and underserved” areas and for “fixed” broadband – by which they mean fiber line and not mobile or satellite. At the committee, officials said this is a “fill-the-gap” program between ROBIN and what private industry is already doing.

That is going to hurt unserved rural communities. It means people who already have “pretty good” internet speeds could get funding to bring them up to great speeds. And community organizations with high-speed internet are also eligible for “gig” coverage. But the BEAD and ROBIN funds will be depleted quickly if used to give faster service to those who already have very good service. It doesn’t make sense for taxpayers to cover that while giving a lower priority to those who don’t have any broadband options at all.

“Our goal is to get to 1 gigabit symmetrical service for not only institutions but homes and businesses as well,” MIHI Chief Connectivity Officer Eric Frederick said at the hearing.

That is a fine goal for private industry. It is not a good goal for a government agency almost entirely reliant on taxpayer dollars. Few people need gigabit internet, and by focusing on this MIHI is going to leave others behind.

The practical reality is that instead of helping roughly 6% of state residents who don’t have access to broadband, the office is shifting its focus to the 90% who are already served (and seeing internet speeds increase every year, driven by the market).

In its presentation, MIHI also made it clear that it was going to focus specifically on laying fiber internet to hit these goals – not other technologies that can already provide high-speed internet. And the office will enforce stringent environmental review rules and favors for labor unions (requiring prevailing wage or federal Davis-Bacon wages).

Other states are pushing back on the restrictions, and this misinterpretation of the law by the Biden Administration is likely to be re-written by the Trump Administration. It makes little sense for Michigan to maintain unnecessary requirements that only serve to slow down building broadband.

The timeline for all of this is disheartening. The state established a high-speed internet office years ago. The funding for this was passed nearly four years ago. But the BEAD program doesn’t expect to break ground on projects until 2026. It should not take five years from Congressional appropriations just to start building out a project. 

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