Electric co-ops 'not happy' with BEAD

As electric cooperatives descend upon Washington (DC) for their fifth-annual Broadband Leadership Summit, they bring with them a number of policy priorities and concerns. Among those is their growing distress at the direction of the federal government's $42 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. "Quite frankly, some decisions have been made in the BEAD program that we are not happy with," said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). "We were pretty disappointed that the preference for fiber was removed. We think that shifts the program's focus from what would be more of a proven, durable, scalable broadband technology. So we were not in favor of that decision," added Matheson. NRECA represents the interests of the country's electric co-ops, of which roughly 200 offer retail broadband service in the US. Michael McWaters, CEO of Suwannee Valley Electric Co-op (SVEC), which serves North Florida, expressed similar concerns about the federal government's shift away from fiber with BEAD. He also lamented that inaccuracies with the Federal Communications Commission's broadband map mean that other providers have received funding to connect areas his co-op already reaches with fiber. He worries the government-funded competition will impact his broadband customer base.