Letter from NTCA to the NTIA

On May 21, Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, sent a letter on behalf of the organization to National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA) Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson. The letter followed up on a discussion about the implementation of the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Bloomfield expressed some of the concerns that NTCA members have shared, "specifically, we believe several critical factors could have a disproportionate material impact upon small rural provider participation: (1) the size of project service areas; (2) the potentially rigid prescription of rates under the guise of affordability measures; (3) excessive weighting of matching funds; and (4) persistently incorrect broadband maps that may not be corrected in the limited time and through the limited vehicles available to correct them."