Where Were the ISPs?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how the Broadbnad Equity, Access, and Deployment grant program got off track. Even before the current giant swing in rules by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the program had a lot of problems. One of my observations about the BEAD grant program is that internet service providers were not an integral part of developing the grant rules. ISPs were largely ignored from the start and were only brought into the BEAD process after the rules were largely set in concrete. This is actually not that unusual in the world of grants, but BEAD was supposed to be different. Unfortunately, any hope that BEAD could work well died when it became clear that States were not going to be given much latitude. From the outset, it quickly became clear that NTIA was not going to be an advisor to State broadband programs. Instead, NTIA dictated practically every aspect of the BEAD rules and process. NTIA left very little to State discretion. When it’s over, I think the NTIA decision to take full charge of BEAD will ultimately prove to be the fatal flaw of the program.