Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program

Minnesota didn’t wait for the federal government’s help to make funding available for rural broadband deployments. The state’s Border to Border program is often cited as a model for rural broadband funding.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced 30 new “categorical exclusions” established to support National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for broadband infrastructure deployments funded by the Internet for All programs.

A private equity firm based in Canada may prevent a lot of rural US Midwesterners from getting fiber broadband. But that’s OK with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) because it’s all perfectly legal. Mercury Broadband, which is majority owned by the private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners, has claimed it covers vast swathes of Michigan, Kansas and Indiana with its fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband service.

Over a quarter of states are expected to be able to have enough Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to get broadband to all their unserved and underserved areas and still have money left. At the other end of the spectrum, some states are struggling to meet national goals of making broadband available to everyone and to deploy fiber to the maximum extent possible.

The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is poised to "provide a material stimulus" to broadband service operators with respect to government-subsidized footprint expansion, but the "dollars will flow later than originally expected," a top policy analyst predicts. It's unlikely that a "significant number" of BEAD-funded networks will become operational in 2025, New Street Research's Blair Levin explained in a 

A group known as the "coalition of RDOF winners" has weighed in on whether the Federal Communications Commission should grant an amnesty period for providers to relinquish their locations awarded through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) in the interest of making those locations available for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program instead.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration approved Montana’s plan to expand digital access, skills and affordability as part of the federal $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act. Montana’s Digital Opportunity Plan listed barriers to digital access, which include broadband availability, service affordability, device access, and digital skills—with access and affordability being the top two. The plan is intended to serve as a guide for the state’s efforts to narrow the digital divide.

One hundred fifty billion dollars in new funding is expected to add an additional 59.3 million US homes to be reached by fiber over the next five years, according to the latest research from RVA Market Research & Consulting, with a total of over 137 million US homes passed by fiber by 2028.  At the end of 2023, 78 million US homes were passed by fiber with a total of 5.1 million route miles of fiber construction completed.

Service providers shouldn’t let reporting requirements or a requirement to offer low-cost service stop them from applying for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding, said Evan Feinman, BEAD program director for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The requirement to offer a low-cost service has become a particularly big concern as funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is set to run out. Many providers had seen the FCC $30-a-month ACP benefit for low-income customers as a means of meeting that requirement.

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) hit a homerun when federal officials clarified that areas covered by broadband running on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum could be marked as served for purposes of BEAD. Many folks in the fiber broadband community are not familiar with wireless internet service and the rules regarding wireless spectrum.