Federal lawmakers have spent billions in the wake of the pandemic to get Americans high-speed internet. And they want to spend much more.

Large swaths of Door County, Wisconsin — a narrow strip of peninsula that separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan and home to about 28,000 year-round residents — lacked reliable broadband access when the pandemic hit, a problem shared by millions of Americans across the country.

"We got phone calls from senior citizens scared to death because they couldn't contact their health providers and could not do telemedicine," said Steve Jenkins, executive director of the county's Economic Development Corporation. Students couldn't participate in distance learning. And when more Americans took road trips to visit the county's six state parks and 54 public beaches last summer, their phones and tablets strained the cellphone service many relied on. "We have restaurants that basically can't process their credit cards because the bandwidth has been reduced," Jenkins said.