Shirley Bloomfield

On March 15, Shirley Bloomfield stepped down from her position as CEO of NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association. Bloomfield reflected on the company's accomplishments during her tenure at NTCA, as well as the things ahead and those she has been most grateful for. "I leave NTCA deeply proud, profoundly grateful and incredibly confident in what comes next," said Bloomfield. "The future of rural broadband is not just bright — it is being built by capable hands, strong leaders and communities that never back down from hard work."

As we mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, I can’t help but reflect on how pivotal that moment was, not just for our industry, but me personally. I worked on the Act when I was leading NTCA’s government affairs efforts, and even then, we knew it was both a product of its time and an attempt to carry forward principles that would guide communications policy for generations.

Press reports in the past several days indicate that SpaceX has presented a “rider” proposing to amend state Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program funding subgrant agreements for “reserving capacity” on its Starlink system.

Many of you know my creed in leadership that we all have a finite time to leave our world better than we found it. And part of that recognition is knowing when the time has come in the life cycle of an organization to have fresh leadership, perspective, vision and a longer runway to get the job done. While this is a bittersweet message to deliver, this is the right time for our industry to make that change. We just came through a crisis over the past four years where we didn’t know if the essential Universal Service Fund would survive. But through our hard work together, it did.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program presents an opportunity for NTCA members and others committed to rural vitality to deliver the broadband that rural America deserves. Our job is to act immediately and forcefully in a focused way to turn this opportunity into reality, even after all the twists and turns in the program’s development to date. NTCA suggests three specific areas to focus on in getting BEAD implementation right:

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.

At the Connected Oklahoma – Rural Broadband Summit in Oklahoma City, I shared my thoughts on the future of the Universal Service Fund (USF) and Low Earth Orbit satellites. Here's the homework I asked the audience to do:

Collecting data and opinions from our members is one of the best tools we have to really tell the story of rural America to policymakers and stakeholders in Washington, D.C. You may have seen that NTCA released the results of a member survey conducted to show how the potential disruption of Universal Service Fund (USF) support could affect rural consumers, broadband investment in rural America and the viability of existing rural broadband networks.

Whether it’s the nature of the area to be served or specific rules that don’t fit well in a given state or for a given provider, there will be some situations in which the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program just doesn’t add up. But it’s important that we figure out where that’s happening on a case-by-case basis, rather than categorically shrugging shoulders and saying, “It’s just not for me or those potential customers,” without any further thought or review. So, this is to say: let’s give BEAD a chance.

We should not take our foot off the gas when it comes to the importance of better mapping, considering it’s at the heart of so much in the rural broadband space. Congress charged the Federal Communications Commission in early 2020 with creating a national broadband availability map. It is only fair to say that the national broadband map is better than any broadband availability dataset before it, and that it keeps getting better. But we are in no position to declare “mission accomplished” or even “good enough” when it comes to the national broadband map.