CCG Consulting

I was once lucky enough to have interviewed a number of rural people who told me what it was like when they finally got electricity. Almost every person I talked to mentioned how life-changing it was to brightly illuminate their homes with electric lightbulbs. Rural electricity was largely funded by low-income loans to newly formed electric cooperatives.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s recent Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program Notice changed the BEAD grant process to focus almost entirely on awarding the grant funds to the internet service provider that asks for the least amount of funding for a given location. But there are some other interesting changes in the Notice for ISPs to consider. 

The biggest impact of changing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program is on the public living in the rural areas that are covered by BEAD. Let me start with BEAD eligibility. The new rules include a provision that wireless internet service providers that claim speeds to the Federal Communications Commission of 100/20 Mbps using unlicensed spectrum can certify their capability to State Broadband Offices and have those areas removed from BEAD eligibility.

I’ve been saying for the last few years that the hardest job in the industry has been the folks who head State Broadband Offices. A lot of the hard work these folks did over the last three years was erased when the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) first eliminated the Digital Equity grants and then recently eviscerated the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants. What is probably the most disturbing about the sudden change in the rules is that BEAD was finally working.

County officials understand better than anybody that better broadband is economic development. They understand that fiber means people will have enough upload speeds to work from home and how higher-paying jobs uplift a local economy. They were looking at the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program as a tool that would bolster the future of their County. The most disheartening thing about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Notice is seeing all of the effort local folks have made to get better broadband fall by the wayside.

When the National Telecommunications and Information Administration made it clear that it was going to change the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program rules, I wrote a piece that I called, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the BEAD Bingo Card. It listed a range of options for how NTIA might modify BEAD—from canceling the program to leaving it largely intact. On June 6, NTIA issued a BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice that defines how BEAD is going to work.

In a precursor to the headlines we’ll be seeing in the U.S., Telefónica announced on May 27 that it shut off its copper telephone network in Spain. The company was able to decommission the first two of its 8,500 exchanges in 2014, and the pace has accelerated since then, with 4,300 exchanges shut in 2024. Telefónica claims to be the first telephone company in Europe to have completed the transition from copper to fiber.

Competition has been creeping into broadband pricing for the last several years as cable companies have been using low introductory rates to try to win new customers and offering similarly low price to try to keep them. However, competition might have gone into a new gear recently when Comcast began offering low rates with a five-year price guarantee. The low prices were likely prompted by the recent announcement that Comcast lost 199,000 broadband customers in the first quarter, but Comcast's competitors aren't sitting still. Verizon recently announced a 3-year lock for fixed wireless acce

There is a huge battle brewing at the Federal Communications Commission over the use of Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum. The pieces are starting to fall in place to possibly auction the spectrum for use by cellular carriers. The idea of putting the spectrum up for auction has been discussed for several years, but the topic went into high gear in 2024 when AT&T asked the FCC to open a formal docket to explore the idea.

A plea for states to not give up on the opportunity to use Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program non-deployment funds to bring better wired-broadband to affordable housing multi-dwelling units (MDUs). Landlords of affordable housing MDUs face a chicken-and-egg dilemma—many affordable housing MDUs don’t have good broadband because the tenants can’t afford to pay market rates for broadband. The affordable rates needed for success will vary according to the incomes of tenants.