Every mile of broadband that the U.S. Department of Commerce subsidizes in its $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, or BEAD, Program means another mile of telehealth potential geographic market share. As the pandemic graphically revealed, there are many hundreds of miles of homes without broadband.

And without broadband it's significantly more difficult to have effective telehealth.

Through BEAD, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the Commerce Department, is giving away the $42.5 billion to towns, cities, and counties to build high-speed Internet (broadband) networks and infrastructure.

BEAD is the largest component of the $65 billion in broadband programs contained in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known also as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill . Complementing BEAD is the Digital Equity Act program that is granting $2.5 billion to communities to help residents with training, digital literacy, and fighting the digital divide.

NTIA worked with the Federal Communications Commission to stand up the $14.2 billion  Affordable Connectivity Program that the FCC now runs. ACP gives qualifying homes up to $30/month – $75/month for Native American households – for Internet access plus a $100  subsidy for a computing device. Some ISPs offer residents telehealth access when they enroll for ACP.

NTIA is implementing several smaller grant programs and most of these have started already. The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program is a nearly $3 billion grant program, and $1.35 billion has been awarded. 42,268 unserved Native American households as well as businesses and anchor institutions that previously had no connectivity now have Internet access. Additionally, there are 23 grants that will create 1,073 new jobs.
Connecting Minority Communities is a $268 grant program targeting eligible Historically Black Colleges or Universities, Tribal Colleges or Universities and minority-serving institutions. These grants can pay for broadband upgrades for the facilities, students' Internet access and computing devices, and broadband for minority-owned businesses and nonprofits within a 15-mile radius from the universities and colleges.  

Video made telehealth a star

Community-owned broadband networks have the power to transform entrepreneurs into captains of industry, change the course of governments and make people LOL at kitty antics.

They also can contribute to healing the sick, rehabbing the lame, or easing troubled minds. To do all of that it helps to have a Killer App as well as fast, reliable Internet. Not just speed for the individual, but blazing fast as an infrastructure moving terabytes of data for thousands of people at a time.

I submit that telehealth collectively is a "killer app" for broadband in this third decade of the 21st Century. Just about everybody gets sick sometime, or is responsible for someone who gets sick. Communities are finding that telehealth increases broadband adoption as well as improves the physical and economic health of residents.

Telehealth can harness and focus broadband and hospital IT investments into digital advancements for urban and rural communities.

Video may have killed the radio star (as the Buggles once sang on MTV), but it definitely gave life to telehealth during the pandemic.

There are jammin' technologies gaining traction and spawning telehealth applications everywhere: artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, virtual reality, augmented reality. But the nature of the technology beast is that it always needs more: more bandwidth, more data storage capacity – and more funding.

'Show me the money'

Every state has a broadband office that is responsible for dispersing funds to unserved and underserved communities. The IIJA defines "unserved" as homes that lack access to broadband at 25 megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload. "Underserved" homes are defined as those that lack access to 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up.

For the past year – in some places even longer – broadband offices have been holding regular meetings and town halls to assess the broadband needs of their communities. 

Every hospital IT person, telehealth vendor and their customers, project team, and healthcare stakeholder who hasn't heard from their local or state broadband official or advocate should reach out and be proactive with this opportunity.

State broadband offices are responsible for determining how funds will be disbursed, whether it's a lottery form or a competitive bidding scenario. Many states have someone designated as the healthcare/telehealth advocate, champion, healthcare statewide or healthcare representative. 

Telehealth and broadband industry folks generally don't run into each other, but in the past six or seven months there have been much more activities and meetings between the two camps as people realize how symbiotic these relationships should be.

Ultimately, much of telehealth planning and stakeholder interactions are local. In the last year or two, much has been written about telehealth as well as the needs of communities to become better connected to broadband. 

Partnerships are critical when you need $40 or $50 million or more for a broadband network, and key partners to have are the state governments. Most of them are augmenting the federal money with state broadband money.

Another NTIA grant program is the nearly $1 billion that's going into states' middle-mile networks. The middle mile is made up of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances between local networks and global internet networks. In addition to the $930 million NTIA is giving out, the recipient states such as Michigan are putting up matching funds totaling another $848 million.

"It is quite effective to be able to use a mix-and-match financial strategy to afford broadband deployment over wide areas," said Tim Maylone, CEO of Cherry Capital Connection, a Michigan-based ISP. "We plan to unite our FCC, county, and Michigan State funds because we've many miles to cover."

Another NTIA grant program is the nearly $1 billion that's going into states' middle-mile networks. The middle mile is made up of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances between local networks and global internet networks. In addition to the $930 million NTIA is giving out, the recipient states such as Michigan are putting up matching funds totaling another $848 million.

"Middle-mile in support of last-mile fiber-to-the-home is a great telehealth-vehicle," said Maylone. "Our residents and healthcare professionals feel it enables them to lower health insurance through proactive and preventative medical care, stay at home verses being admitted or readmitted to a hospital – and first responders can give a higher level of diagnostic and medical care."