Doug Dawson (POTS and PANS) reports on the BEAD requirement that a provider reach all unserved homes…
One of the most interesting rules in the BEAD legislation is that broadband needs to be offered to every unserved location in the country – not 98%, not 99%, but all of them. This sounds like a terrific policy goal, but as I’ve been thinking about it, the goal is going to be incredibly hard to meet in many places. This got me thinking about all of the unique situations I’ve seen over the years.
Doug describes some very-difficult-to-reach deployments and asks if all of the folks in remote areas even want to get access. (Lots to say on that issue, but not today.) He also points out…
This also raises the question if BEAD should be used to reach customers in the RDOF areas who will not be covered by those networks. We are all pretending that the RDOF areas will be 100% served when those networks are built – but the RDOF rules didn’t mandate 100% coverage. Folks who will be skipped by RDOF will remain unserved after BEAD.
Last month I attended a community broadband planning session where a local provider reminded folks that RDOF did not require 100 percent coverage. That provider was happy to reach the required 95 percent but reaching the hardest 5 percent would have significantly raised the bid or increased the expense to the provider to a point of being too expensive for them to bid. It was something I hadn’t really thought about before. Those unserved locations in RDOF areas will likely become even harder to reach once the funding is gone.
Doug asks about what happens if it doesn’t happen…
Any BEAD winner is going to have to pledge to build to reach every unserved home in a grant footprint. But nobody has defined the consequences if a BEAD winner doesn’t reach everybody. Will states mandate that an ISP make the investment to get to the hard-to-reach homes? Will States consider a clawback of funding or big fines for ISPs that fail to reach everybody? …
The most perplexing thing about the BEAD rules is that the legislation says these places must be served first before a State runs out of grant funding. Many of these tiny pockets are incredibly expensive to reach, and it doesn’t make policy sense to serve a few homes for a huge cost when the same money could instead bring broadband to many more homes in a more normal setting.
Doug asks good questions. I don’t have any answers, but I applaud the questions because broadband is getting an “unprecedented” amount of funding as we’ve all been told. Unserved and underserved communities are glad to get it but now is the time to ask about how that money can be best spent. And what’s the next step if it isn’t enough?
Ann – while it’s true that serving 95% of the required number of locations is deemed “in compliance” for RDOF, there is an economic consequence for failing to serve less than 100% of the required total. Companies that serve at least 95% but less than 100% have to refund to the FCC the pro-rated amount of support associated with whatever number of locations they fail to serve under 100%. It’s still an open question – what will the states do to BEAD recipients that fail to meet their 100% coverage commitment. We don’t know yet whether states will be imposing penalties for non-performance on their sub-grantees.
That’s very helpful. Thanks! It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
It seems like it might be cheaper to pay the pro-rated penalty rather than build to some locations. I can understand all perspectives here.