The Digital Divide: Ivey’s Epic Fail on Alabama’s Broadband Lifeline

Guest Opinion by Troy Carico

“Hey, girl, stop what you're doin'!
Hey, girl, you'll drive me to ruin.

Communication Breakdown,
It's always the same,
I'm having a nervous breakdown,
Drive me insane!”

Led Zeppelin — Communication Breakdown

Sit right down and hear about the monkey driving a train in the form of a colossal catastrophe courtesy of Governor Kay Ivey and her cronies in the legislature. As a seasoned intelligence operative with expertise in critical infrastructure, honed through nearly five combat tours and numerous clandestine assignments worldwide for the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Iraqi Survey Group; I’ve assessed threats to national security from Baghdad to Bagram and the situation report I have for Alabama is unsatisfactory.

I have both safeguarded and attacked vital information systems in my career; defending against sabotage and disruption in the most hostile environments imaginable. But nothing prepares you for the outright betrayal that is happening c right here in Alabama, where our leaders have fumbled and funneled billions in federal funds meant to fortify our rural communications and high-speed internet infrastructure.

This isn’t just failure—it’s a dereliction of duty, a criminal enterprise that’s leaving our citizens isolated, our economy crippled, and our future in jeopardy (and leaving me completely unhinged in South Montgomery County).

Let’s lay out the facts, raw and unfiltered, because true intelligence products are timely, actionable and accurate; not contrived stories from politicians or excuses from staffers.

The federal spigot opened wide for Alabama, starting with nearly $6 million in December 2022 for “Internet for All” planning grants under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Then came $191.9 million from the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund in January 2023 to connect 55,000 rural households and businesses. By October 2024, we scored federal approval for a massive $1.4 billion from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, with applications opening in April 2025 and deadlines hitting May 22, 2025. Add in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) injections: $53.5 million in June 2024, $148.3 million in February 2024, $42 million in September 2024, and even a fresh $6.2 million for middle-mile projects in July 2025.

That’s billions funneled through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) to lift our rural areas out of the connectivity dark ages. You ask where’s the progress after all of that treasure given? Alabama’s rural connectivity ranks a dismal 44th nationally for broadband coverage, speed, and availability, per BroadbandNow’s 2025 data. We’re scraping the bottom at 45th for high-speed internet access according to America’s Health Rankings. Over 20% of rural residents still lack high-speed service, compared to just 2% in urban spots. Our average download speed? A lackluster 345 Mbps, trailing far behind neighbors like Georgia and Tennessee, who are surging ahead in digital infrastructure and economic booms.

Rural Alabamians are stranded on a remote technological frontier with unreliable connections that can’t handle basic streaming, let alone remote work or telemedicine. And here’s the kicker: in my line of work, I’ve operated in third-world hellholes where cellular and internet service was leagues better than the garbage we endure here—reliable enough to coordinate ops in war zones, yet Alabama’s rural signals drop like fat kids in the middle of August at high school band camp.

This reeks of criminality, plain and simple. Governor Ivey, State Sen. Clay Scofield (pushing broadband since 2017), and Rep. Terri Sewell (hyping $188 million in 2024) have presided over this mess. State audits in June 2025 exposed alarming misuse of public funds statewide, while officials demanded stricter reporting on $400 million in broadband dollars amid glacial rollout. Where did the money vanish to? Diverted to cronies with favorable contracts? Squandered on unnecessary fluff? I call for immediate criminal probes—indictments for fraud, embezzlement if the trail leads there. These aren’t abstract dollars they’re are quantifiable Federal funds and they’re our lifeline to prosperity.

Take my situation: right in Montgomery County, the state’s capital, I’m stuck on prehistoric 3-wire DSL that uses a hamster on a wheel to generate bandwidth. I can see the puzzled looks on some of the readers faces…3-wire DSL is standard phone line RG 11, let that marinate in your brain housing group. I have said ad nauseam, I had better services both cellular and internet infrastructure in such exotic getaways as Djibouti, Afghanistan and Iraq. If critical infrastructure experts like me can’t get decent service in the heart of Alabama, what hope is there for those in the deep bush? Who in their right mind would launch a business here when uploads fail mid-pitch, calls drop and the prospect of broken video feeds is daily? We’re bleeding talent and loosing investment capital to states that prioritize connectivity.

Blame Ivey’s geriatric fog, at 80 years old, she’s out of touch with the tech imperative driving modern economies; it is doubtful she even knows what critical infrastructure consists of let alone the advantage of fiber-optic backbones properly deployed in the state. Her dim grasp has us lagging Mississippi’s and their Governor’s bold technology-centric visions, Georgia’s tech explosion and Tennessee’s rural fiber feats, dooming us to economic irrelevance.

In closing, Ivey’s legacy is a dumpster fire of squandered billions, digital isolation, and failed leadership. She’s a has-been who betrayed Alabama so many times she should be ashamed and indicted for those misdeeds and rebuild and rebrand with warriors and leaders who cherish and invest in critical digital infrastructure, not ancient relics who let it crumble.

Troy Carico is a decorated U.S. Army Veteran whose career spanned more than 22 years in uniform. He began as an infantryman and was later commissioned as an officer, earning additional branch qualifications in counterintelligence and military intelligence. His service record includes numerous awards for distinction, as well as recognition as a service-connected disabled Veteran. Following his military career, Carico continued serving the nation as a civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s elite Great Skills Program, where he took part in multiple clandestine assignments across the globe.

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