Missed by BEAD

An article from the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at the New York Law School claims that over 1 million locations were missed by Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment grants. They identified these as locations that are still shown as unserved and underserved on the Federal Communications Commission broadband maps, but which did not make it into the BEAD program. ACLP also identified two other sources of locations that will likely not get broadband. They predict some BEAD defaults since a number of small and untested internet service providers won sizable BEAD grants. They also believe there will continue to be defaults in other grant programs. ACLP recommends that up to half of the $20 billion+ that will not be spent on BEAD grants be deposited into a BEAD Reserve Fund to be used to cover the shortfalls. It’s a sensible idea, but unlikely to gain any momentum.