New York City leaders are once again being urged to embrace government-owned broadband networks as a solution to connectivity challenges. But while the idea may sound appealing in theory, the real-world track record of these taxpayer-funded systems tells a different story—one marked by high costs, operational failures, and disappointing results for the very communities they are meant to serve
Tech Policy Press, working in conjunction with the Internet for All Working Group, pushed for local leaders to leave companies like Charter and Altice out in the cold and shift more money toward government-owned networks (GON). The public-broadband advocates want New York City to build and own its own broadband infrastructure and lease the fiber to multiple private companies competing to provide service over the lines. Yet similar experiments across the country have consistently struggled to deliver on their promises, often leaving taxpayers on the hook for projects that fail to achieve widespread adoption or financial sustainability.
The report framed the issue as one of accessibility, noting a 2025 study that found 22 percent of families in the Bronk don’t have broadband at home. That percentage was similar to a New York City Council study in 2020 that found about 25 percent of New Yorkers didn’t have a home broadband subscription. After five years, those numbers showed very little change, despite the Big Apple Connect program that provided free internet to public housing residents through various providers.
One should also note that as of 2023, FCC summary data showed broadband connections available at more than 98 percent of the New York City’s census blocks. Clearly, the issue isn’t that private providers have failed, but rather that residents are either choosing not to connect or are unaware of their options.
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) pointed this out before.
In 2020, New York City unveiled its Internet Master Plan, intending to spend $156 million to create fiber and wireless open-access networks with a focus on the underserved parts of the Big Apple. A network covering the entire city was estimated to cost $2.1 billion to deploy.
In verbiage common for advocates of GONs, the plan stated that “the private market has failed to deliver the [I]nternet in a way that works for all New Yorkers.”
The truth, as usual, was more complex. In this case, it was an education, not a connection issue. Speaking with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Christopher Mitchell in 2022, former New York City deputy chief technology officer Aaron Meyerson noted that up to 2 million city households were eligible for the $30 monthly discount for broadband service through the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program, but only about 500,000 applied. That is just a 25 percent participation rate and left up to $15 million a month in savings for low-income New Yorkers to connect to broadband on the table.
Then NYC Mayor Eric Adams scrapped the Internet Master Plan after his election in 2022.
At the state level, New York officials have used claims of private provider failures to exclude the free market from state funding programs. The state created the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program (MIP) to fund GONs through New York, earmarking $228 million toward that endeavor. All that taxpayer money goes toward broadband infrastructure that is “owned by a public entity or publicly controlled.”
A common-sense budget amendment during the 2024 New York legislative session would have limited MIP grants to projects targeting only unserved and underserved locations to prevent overbuilding and taxpayer waste, but that amendment did not survive the reconciliation process.
Other blue states such as California, Maine, and Vermont have created grant programs centering on municipal broadband projects. As TPA has documented in reports such as “GON with the Wind: The Failed Promise of Government Owned Networks Across the Country,” these projects often hemorrhage taxpayer money at an alarming rate.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will soon begin distributing funds through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. New York is set to use nearly $290 million in taxpayer money from BEAD for broadband infrastructure.
Advocate of GONs including the Internet for All Working Group claim private providers are failing New Yorkers, but Broadband Now shows wide coverage of the city by a variety of providers.
ConnectALL is administering a $50 million digital equity initiative with a focus on digital literacy and digital job readiness skills, which is clearly a better use of funds than duplicative fiber given the low adoption rates in New York City. Leaders there should focus on education and adoption not squandering taxpayer money for GONs.
