Press reports in the past several days indicate that SpaceX has presented a “rider” proposing to amend state Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding subgrant agreements for “reserving capacity” on its Starlink system. There are many items presented in the rider and lots to unpack, but two issues stand out as most important – the fairness of the BEAD process for prospective bidders, and what it means to “serve” a customer at a specific level of performance.
As a matter of fairness, everyone who chose to bid in BEAD largely knew the rules going in. Some may have had concern about either (or both of) the “original” rules from May 2022 or the “restructured” policies from June 2025 – but with the exception of some October 2025 changes related to the eligibility of BEAD-funded areas for ongoing support, the rules were well-defined when providers submitted their bids and everyone presumably was going to have to abide by them once they won.
But if any given provider were permitted now – after awards have been announced and as they are being finalized – to implement its own slate of additional terms to “provide clarity” as to how the rules should read, this would call into question the integrity of the process. NTIA already defined what reservation of capacity meant, for example, and the performance testing that would be required. If there were concerns or questions about those issues, they should have been flagged for resolution before final bids were placed and awards announced. If any provider is given the opportunity now to “clarify” its position or reserve rights as to a certain program provision, where does this end? I’m sure many NTCA members would want to present “riders” of their own on certain implementation details if that door is opened.
And then turning to performance and what it really means to “serve” a customer, the SpaceX rider may provide the clearest example to date of what NTCA has long called the “anyone/everyone problem.” This is the notion that, while an ISP might have the capability to serve anyone (which is what the National Broadband Map shows), that ISP may not have the ability to serve everyone it claims to be able to serve if they were to all order service. Too many people take the National Broadband Map as “gospel” and say something to the effect of “see, they can serve everywhere!” Well, maybe a provider can serve everywhere, but it can’t serve everyone – in fact, it can only serve some of those locations before the boat gets overloaded and performance starts to sink (or service can’t be delivered at all).
In asking for “clarity” on performance obligations, SpaceX is making this very same point and showing how it’s a real issue. SpaceX says it is trying to dispel “confusion” about what it means to reserve capacity on its Starlink system. Space X explains that, rather than reserving capacity for specific locations, it needs to “dynamically allocate” capacity based upon customer demand. But if SpaceX had the capacity to serve everyone, this wouldn’t be necessary – the capacity would be there already. You only need dynamic allocation if you don’t have enough capacity to serve every serviceable location.
What SpaceX has highlighted here is exactly what policymakers need to consider in determining who is “really” served rather than just “serviceable.” NTIA did this in its “Restructuring Policy Notice” last summer, when it included a technical appendix requiring unlicensed fixed wireless providers to “turn in homework” showing their technical capability and capacity to serve every location before being seen as a competitor for those locations. We need more “due diligence” of the kind that NTIA did there to make sure we know where the mission of universal service is really being fulfilled. And it may take even deeper review and thought in the case of a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite system than for a terrestrial fixed wireless network, because of the nature of LEO constellations that both enable and require “dynamic allocation” of capacity across state and even international boundaries.
The BEAD program has been quite the journey, and we clearly have a way to go still. We’re grateful to NTIA and the states for their hard work in getting it this far, and we hope that they will be able to bring implementation efforts across the finish line soon – so that customers can start getting connected consistent with Congress’ intent in creating the program in the first place.