A group of 115 state legislators is warning Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that forcing states to change their approach to the $42 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will be detrimental to their progress and may delay deployment by over a year.
The letter (dated today, April 3) is signed by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers representing 28 states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. It comes as states, the telecom industry and country at large await changes from the Commerce Department and NTIA that could force states to re-do their BEAD plans, just as they’re ready to start deploying and awarding funds.
They are concerned about delays…
The Wall Street Journal then reported that the anticipated new rules around tech neutrality could see the low-Earth orbit (LEO) service Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, receive $10 billion-$20 billion through BEAD. Under BEAD’s current rules, which prioritize fiber in areas where it’s not prohibitively expensive, Starlink was anticipated to receive up to $4 billion.
Last week, during her Senate confirmation hearing to lead the NTIA, Arielle Roth, who served as telecommunications policy director for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), offered no clear answers on how she’d implement changes to BEAD or what changes she supports. Rather she reiterated that her “goal with the BEAD program would be to get broadband to every last unserved American as expeditiously as possible.”
But there are broad concerns both that the floated changes to the BEAD program will result in inferior connectivity for rural Americans, by relegating them to satellite over fiber, and that forcing states to change a program that they spent three years building, just as they’re at the starting line, will delay the program’s implementation.