SpaceX Challenges Wisconsin, Colorado BEAD Plans

SpaceX has challenged at least two more states’ tentative grant winners under a $42.45 billion broadband expansion program, asking the Commerce Department to step in and mandate that states hold another round of bidding. In those comments on Colorado and Wisconsin’s plans, the company pointed to locations it thought it should have won: those where cost came in 10 times the cost of the lowest offer and those that on average cost more than $10,000 to connect, collectively representing 3.5 percent of the locations eligible for funding in the state. “NTIA should carefully review Wisconsin’s proposal, reject unnecessary spending, and require Wisconsin to recompete these locations to achieve the Benefit of the Bargain and bring internet to those who need it in months, not years,” Erica Myers, the company’s senior manager for global government affairs, wrote in a comment on the state’s plan. SpaceX has been bidding aggressively in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, and has argued that it should be winning more locations after the Trump administration instituted new rules that emphasized low deployment costs.