Why BEAD to Kuiper?

There is no question that this has turned into one of the oddest years for broadband during my career. We’ve seen Digital Equity grants killed. We’re seeing the spending for BEAD being cut in half. And maybe oddest of all, we’re seeing States make sizeable Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment grant awards to Kuiper, although the company isn’t close to having its first broadband customer. For the last month, I’ve been perplexed by the magnitude of the BEAD awards being made to Kuiper. As of this writing, Kuiper has tentative BEAD awards for 324,000 locations, second only to Starlink at 427,000. These are tentative awards, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is still reviewing and may reject some of the tentative awards to fiber, which would likely increase the awards to satellite. I saw a recent quote from a State broadband manager, when asked why he made an award to Kuiper, said it was because they bid the lowest cost per passing. That seems like a cynical response, and it makes me wonder if State Broadband Managers have thrown up their hands and are just following NTIA’s rules without questions.