Subsidize what, exactly? Broadband in general? We (through tax dollars) have subsidized it, to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars a year since the Clinton era. The Telcos (Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, et al) have been sucking up all that money intended to subsidize improving and expanding broadband in the US into rural areas and producing nothing in return. Broadband in rural areas is only marginally available today compared to where it was in the '90s and early 2000's. And I'm not talking about rural in the sense of some middle of nowhere town in rural Texas, or somewhere in Wyoming... I'm taking about even where I live, nestled right next to Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, NC (The Research Triangle area). My county, literally next door to one of the east coast's major technology hubs, STILL has areas that are only served by dial-up, or at best 25Mb/s DSL. No cable, no faster DSL. The only options for many in my county are Century Link's embarrassingly slow DSL, or satellite with the exorbitant costs, data caps, and other issues unique to satellite internet. Even a 4G hot spot is not an option for many, because Verizon service is fairly dodgy, due to lack of towers to provide blanket coverage, and towers that don't always work and take weeks to months to get fixed. 5G is still a decade off here, because they'd HAVE to increase the tower count in order to provide even basic 5G coverage, and they can't even get enough towers up for 4G/LTE today.

Point is, there ARE subsidies, and that money is not being used to upgrade our national infrastructure. It's an embarrassment of the highest order to think that the country that literally invented the internet, cannot provide the internet to it's citizens despite billions and billions of dollars spent to subsidize that internet.