BEAD Unplugged Panel: Don’t Count on Receiving Non-Deployment Funds

If states were counting on leftover Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds for non-deployment projects, panelists at BEAD Unplugged on August 12 warned: Don’t. “[Commerce Secretary] Howard Lutnick cares about making money and saving money,” Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband and Benton Institute for Broadband & Society senior fellow and public advocate, said. “I believe he wants to… put that money in a bag and hand it to Donald Trump.” Carol Mattey, founding member and principal of Mattey Consulting, shared the concern. “I think that there is going to be a strong pressure to not spend the money, and therefore the states are going to end up falling short, and that’s really a shame,” Mattey said.