NTIA Encourages ISPs to Ensure State BEAD Contracts Comply With Agency Priorities

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently began circulating a document, “BEAD Subgrantees: Protect Your Rights,” that encourages internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure that specific language appears in state contracts for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. NTIA stresses that ISPs’ grants (and states’ entire awards) will be “at risk” if these contracts do not include, verbatim, prohibitions of certain broadband regulations and mandates for permitting reform. ISPs are instructed to notify their Federal Program Officer if the language is absent or altered. The consequences, beyond putting BEAD awards “at risk,” are unspecified.