Jim Matheson

The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program’s initial investment is failing rural America. Delayed implementation, shifting guidance, cost constraints, and unrealistic funding assumptions have slowed progress, discouraged participation, and weakened a historic opportunity to bring long-overdue broadband service to rural communities. Directing further investment under the same misguided approach will not deliver universal connectivity to rural America.

Broadband programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration have supported the construction of broadband networks in some of the most expensive-to-reach rural areas. NTIA’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program is one of the largest federal broadband programs to date.

We are writing to thank you for your commitment to the BEAD program for rural broadband deployment. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that established the BEAD program was passed three-and-a-half years ago—and yet not a single household has been connected to high-speed internet through the program. To fulfill its long overdue mission of connecting all Americans, we urge you to both eliminate the unnecessary and burdensome program requirements imposed by the Biden Administration and enable the States to move forward quickly with implementation.

On October 31, NRECA sent a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration expressing concern about the potential for BEAD funds being used to overbuild locations with fiber-to-the-home connections. CEO Jim Matheson wrote "As state broadband offices begin opening BEAD application windows and evaluating proposals, I write to express concern about the potential for BEAD funds being used to overbuild locations with fiber-tothe-home connections.

In a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) expressed concerns about the Federal Communications Commission's new National Broadband Map and urged the NTIA to provide states with flexibility in determining locations and areas eligible for funding in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) send letters to both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking for a portion of the $10 billion for infrastructure in the just announced budget agreement, for the FY18 Omnibus bill and FY19 spending bill still being developed, to be designated for rural broadband. Specifically, NRECA requested that at least $2.5 billion of those funds dedicated to rural broadband, and to fund that effort through the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service, using a “level playing field” approach that would ensure electric