Playing Defense Under the New BEAD

Under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Restructuring Policy Notice issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on June 6, state and territory broadband offices must rescind all preliminary and provisional BEAD awards made under the prior rules and must, in very short order, run a single competitive round with a strong preference for providers that promise to provide 100Mbps/20 Mbps service for the least amount of BEAD funding support. Crucially, the Policy Notice puts LEO satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless on the same footing as end-to-end fiber projects. To put it mildly, the changes put prior BEAD applicants in a defensive position, especially those that proposed end-to-end fiber projects. Fiber providers that already submitted BEAD applications must now compete against LEO and ULFW service solely on cost. It is essentially a one-round reverse auction, with unequal technologies being treated the same.