The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program presents an opportunity for NTCA members and others committed to rural vitality to deliver the broadband that rural America deserves. Our job is to act immediately and forcefully in a focused way to turn this opportunity into reality, even after all the twists and turns in the program’s development to date.
Stepping back, about 15 years ago, there was substantial debate over what level of broadband service rural America needed. The National Broadband Plan aimed to deliver 100 Mbps service to most Americans by 2020, but suggested that, because of cost, much of rural America should be resigned to 4 Mbps. This would have meant very little building of new networks in rural areas. Instead, the thought was that we should do the bare minimum — take the cheapest route — by retrofitting old copper networks in rural areas. The areas where this policy took hold are many of the same areas where BEAD funding is most needed now, precisely because a short-term perspective didn’t work and we needed a “do-over” on closing that digital divide.
Not all rural areas fell into this trap, however. NTCA members have long shown “proof of concept” for delivery of world-class rural broadband, and their work over the past 15-plus years only underscores what’s possible with a mix of long-term commitment and perspective, private capital, and effective government programs in deeply rural areas. Today, NTCA members on average reach nearly 90% of their customers with fiber connections and 100 Mbps or better speeds despite serving areas where the average density is fewer than seven households per mile. In short, there’s a roadmap for rural broadband success if anyone wants to take a look and follow it.
Which takes us to the back-and-forth over the BEAD Program. BEAD was initially intended to “cure for the sins” of some broadband programs past, where funds flowed for incremental upgrades in performance and/or without accountability to unvetted bidders promising to do things that they couldn’t deliver. Unfortunately, the fundamental purpose of BEAD got lost as political priorities were tacked on, and what was supposed to be a series of reasonable gates to direct funding responsibly became an obstacle course instead. Curing for the sins of prior programs became afflicted with overcorrection and mission creep.
We have a chance for course correction — but only if implementation of the Restructuring Policy Notice does not fall into the same trap of “overcorrection” or make the same mistakes as prior initiatives in aiming for short-term progress only. There are many things to like about the Notice, including the elimination of many political tack-ons that deterred some providers from participating at all and raised costs for those who did. These much-needed changes will help the BEAD Program refocus on the fundamental goal of connecting Americans.
But in other respects, the Notice could repeat prior mistakes if it isn’t implemented thoughtfully. At bottom, the BEAD Program has always been a “line-drawing” exercise, with decisions needing to be made about how far we can take robust and scalable technologies before resorting to networks that might be cheaper to install but: (a) will not deliver the same levels of performance; (b) will not keep pace with longer-term consumer demand; (c) will cost more to maintain; and/or (d) will cost more to rebuild in a shorter period of time. As rural broadband operators, NTCA members understand this line-drawing effort and such trade-offs well; even as they have invested heavily in fiber, they use a mix of wired and wireless technologies, licensed and unlicensed, to reach customers in deeply rural areas. So it’s no surprise that, in designing BEAD, the government itself is grappling with where this line should be drawn.
What happens next requires a thoughtful balancing act — and, while one can (and some will) try to boil the ocean on what to do, we need focused, tangible action to realize the promise. NTCA, therefore, suggests three specific areas to focus on in getting BEAD implementation right given where we are in the process. For each, the states should use the authority and flexibility afforded by the law and the Notice to make the right calls and ensure that both the American taxpayer and the rural consumer truly get the “benefit of the bargain” now and for years to come.
First, the law makes clear — and the Notice reaffirms — that only “scalable” projects can be deemed a priority for funding. While the Notice rescinds a categorical determination that only fiber meets this definition, it does not dictate that every technology is scalable. Rather, it is now up to each state to determine whether a proposed network technology is scalable and worthy of priority. This means the states are both authorized and empowered to do the kind of intensive review lacking in prior broadband funding programs, and they should seize this opportunity. States should put the evidentiary burden on those claiming “priority” to demonstrate scalability through objective benchmarks that establish how the proposed network will not only deliver baseline performance today, but can cost-effectively scale to meet customer needs over a decade-plus — and how the network will further the use of cutting-edge technologies and use cases like next-generation wireless, AI, grid modernization, precision agriculture, and data center demand in rural America. While a technologically neutral policy now permits any proposal to seek to qualify as a priority, it’s not the case that “everyone is exceptional,” and it is entirely consistent with the Notice to find after careful review that certain proposals simply don’t make the cut.
Second, the Notice expressly declines to adopt cost-per-location caps, while cautioning that NTIA may reject a project if it “would impose unreasonable costs on the BEAD Program.” To measure and validate reasonableness of cost, states should use the various models previously procured by agencies and/or published by stakeholders showing costs of deploying networks in rural areas. These tools can benchmark potential awards against the best available deployment cost estimates and guide project selection.
Third, the states still have an important (albeit somewhat rushed) role to play in refining location eligibility. The Notice directs states to reach out to entities claiming to offer unlicensed fixed wireless service on the FCC’s National Broadband Map and require them to “submit evidence that BEAD funding is not required” for certain locations showing as served on the map. Here again, the Notice gives states flexibility to define the process for updating the eligibility map — for example, a state should consider what “evidence” is required, taking into account what the National Broadband Map does and does not represent. More specifically, the National Broadband Map depicts a provider’s ability to serve any single location, but it does not capture a provider’s ability to serve every location if all of them were to order service. (Put another way, just because someone can in theory serve “anyone” on the map, that does not mean they can serve “everyone.”) States therefore need to “go beyond the map.” This presumably is why NTIA itself indicated that more “evidence” is needed, and providers of unlicensed fixed wireless service should be required to demonstrate their ability to serve every location within a given geography pursuant to the published technical standards at the required level of performance before those locations are deemed ineligible for BEAD funding.
We recognize that the changes coming now in the Notice present challenges in terms of timing and process. But NTCA’s hope is that, if the states use the authority still conferred upon them by the law and the Notice, we can still ensure that both the rural consumer and the American taxpayer get “the benefit of the bargain” now and for years to come — rather than ending up with “the short end of the stick” as has been the case under prior programs that aim for incremental progress and don’t do their due diligence before making awards.