The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently began circulating a document, “BEAD Subgrantees: Protect Your Rights,” that encourages internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure that specific language appears in state contracts for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. NTIA stresses that ISPs’ grants (and states’ entire awards) will be “at risk” if these contracts do not include, verbatim, prohibitions of certain broadband regulations and mandates for permitting reform. ISPs are instructed to notify their Federal Program Officer if the language is absent or altered. The consequences, beyond putting BEAD awards “at risk,” are unspecified.

Limiting State Broadband Regulations

The first contract provision, “Prohibition on Utility-Style Rate Regulation,” emphasizes item 50 from the BEAD Terms and Conditions, which says that, during the grant period (i.e., roughly the next 10 to 14 years), no state or local government body shall regulate the rates, terms, and conditions of broadband service nor impose net neutrality, open access, or other rules on ISPs that win BEAD awards. This prohibition applies to all networks the ISP operates in the state, not just the BEAD-funded portion of those networks.

This prohibition will most directly impact states like New York and California, which respectively have laws regulating broadband affordability and net neutrality. (Of note: NTIA appears to have begun circulating the “Protect Your Rights” document days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York’s BEAD program would move forward alongside the state’s landmark Affordable Broadband Act.) New York’s Affordable Broadband Act requires larger ISPs to offer low-income households high-speed internet service for $20 a month or less. Per NTIA's “BEAD Subgrantees: Protect Your Rights” document, ISPs may contend that New York’s law conflicts with NTIA’s prohibition on “regulating rates, terms, and conditions of broadband service.” Similarly, contentions may be made about the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act, which prevents ISPs from blocking or throttling certain types of online traffic.  

Permitting Reform Mandate

The second contract provision, “Permitting Commitments States Must Include,” requires states to meet four separate permitting commitments: 

• Approve or deny permits within 90 days. This “shot clock” rule would require states to ensure that permitting entities—state, local, tribal, and federal agencies—act on “broadband-related” permit applications within 90 days.
• Minimize state and local permitting costs. This language would require states to ensure that state and local permitting fees are based on “objectively reasonable” costs and applied uniformly to “similarly situated” competitors. It is unclear what “objectively reasonable” and “similarly situated” mean in this context.
• Establish permitting roundtables. Roundtables will include representatives from relevant governments (e.g., federal, state, local, and tribal) and affected industries (e.g., ISPs, utilities, contractors, and pole owners). The goal of these roundtables is to resolve permitting issues for BEAD subgrantees and, if that fails, to escalate them. 
• Publish data on subgrantee complaints. States must publish data related to BEAD project delays and other issues that escalate through the permitting roundtables. Data must be made publicly available and submitted with the state’s semi-annual report to NTIA.

In addition to these commitments, NTIA is requiring states to: establish a single point of contact for broadband permitting issues (e.g. a staff position at the broadband office); give deference to ISPs’ preferred method of construction (e.g. trenching, directional boring); allow similar/duplicative permits to be done in batches (e.g. ISPs submit a single bulk application for work done in the same area); and apply Federal Communications Commission pole attachment rules to municipally- and cooperatively-owned poles when not already subject to state regulation.

As written, these mandates lack implementation funding (a potential role for BEAD non-deployment) and require state broadband offices to solve issues over which they have limited, if any, authority (states, and particularly broadband offices, are typically not in charge of federal, tribal, and local permitting). 

Three Unanswered Questions

In “BEAD Subgrantees: Protect Your Rights,” NTIA does not address three questions that are fundamental to the success of these prohibitions and mandates:

1. What legal authority does NTIA have to require states to overturn or not enforce their own laws? 
2. How can states guarantee permitting timelines over which they have no control?
3. How will NTIA enforce prohibitions and mandates in BEAD contracts that have already been signed? 

BEAD With Strings Attached

Since the beginning of 2025, the Administration has required states to redo completed BEAD plans in ways that benefit satellite providers, threatened to deny BEAD non-deployment funds to states that regulate AI, and sought to override state labor laws. The effect has slowed BEAD down and led to worse outcomes for states and communities.

At a Congressional hearing on June 25, 2025, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick promised to move swiftly with a simple BEAD program that would award all the BEAD funds by the end of that year. But to date, less than half the funds have been awarded, and NTIA has not provided states with guidance on how to use the remaining funds.

Now, with “BEAD Subgrantees: Protect Your Rights,” NTIA is not only failing to move BEAD forward, it is creating friction between states, ISPs, and the federal government that could degrade BEAD results even further. 

Drew Garner is the Director of Policy Engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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