Doug Dawson knows broadband policy and technology from the ground up. He has written about three main flaws in BEAD funding…

BEAD Satellite Awards. I start with the premise that rural communities are not going to be happy when somebody officially tells them that the federal government is giving money to Starlink or Kuiper to solve their rural broadband gap. It’s likely that NTIA and the FCC will declare that satellite is good broadband so that they can declare that the rural broadband gap has been solved.

There are also natural limitations on the capabilities of satellite broadband. It can be difficult to deliver a satellite signal through heavy tree canopy.  …

Defaults. There will continue to be defaults for existing broadband grant programs. This year saw significant RDOF defaults from Charter and CenturyLink. There will be defaults on networks funded by ARPA grants, where funding ends at the end of 2026.

I expect BEAD defaults. …

Crappy Mapping. The biggest group of locations missed by BEAD will be due to poor FCC maps. The BEAD map challenge was a total joke. It was fairly easy for ISPs to get BEAD-eligible locations removed from the map, including many that should have stayed on. The map challenge made it practically impossible to add locations to the BEAD map where the FCC maps were in error. There are two major flaws in the FCC maps that will surface as people complain about still not having adequate broadband.