Wi-Fi Woes: State may return $350M in fed funding meant to boost Nebraskans’ broadband

There were originally about 30,000 locations in Nebraska eligible for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) Program support. But federal changes to that program—then the way Nebraska implemented those changes— vastly cut the number of Nebraska locations and appear to have left thousands out of luck. Nebraska now plans to use only 11% of the federal money provided to the state, third lowest in the country, according to an industry analysis. It may end up returning more than $350 million in unspent federal funds even as thousands of Nebraskans struggle with unreliable internet. The new rules also made it more likely that the federal money would go to “Low Earth Orbit” satellite internet companies, like services offered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Leo. That technology is generally cheaper than fiber—instead of burying miles of fiber-optic lines, they provide internet using a constellation of small satellites that beam internet into homes. The new rules also prioritized another cheap option called “fixed wireless” that operates similar to a cell tower. Patrick Haggerty, director of the Nebraska Broadband Office, said that all the technologies exceeded the standards required by the law. “If you come at it from tech-neutrality, and you believe in each of the technologies being competitive with each other, which they are, particularly today and moving forward, then you start to see how it shakes out,” Haggerty said. But satellite and fixed-wireless options leave rural Nebraskans less satisfied than fiber internet, according to a recent study done by Angela Hollman, a cyber systems professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.