Craig Moffett has a beef with BEAD. What's right, what's missing?

Well-regarded telecommunications and cable analyst Craig Moffett from MoffettNathanson had some harsh words for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program in a recent note for investors. He said that because BEAD has taken so long—five years since it was established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—private investors have stopped paying attention to it. And in fact, private industry has moved on to close the digital divide in its own ways. “The biggest takeaway from all this is that market forces moved a lot faster than the government did,” wrote Moffett, noting that fixed wireless access providers and low-Earth-orbit satellite companies have done a lot to bring broadband to rural areas. Even cable companies, such as Charter, have been expanding their networks into unserved areas. “Most of the BEAD program’s rural coverage goals are obsolete,” he wrote. “Broadband got there before the subsidies did. Or, more precisely, without the need for subsidies at all.”