TDS is More Excited About Universal Service Fund's ACAM Extension Than BEAD Program

At a time when some service providers are revving up to get funding in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, TDS Telecom President and CEO Jim Butman had a surprising take on it. The company already has upgraded a large part of its traditional local service territory to fiber broadband but has about 500,000 locations that are served by DSL, including about 200,000 or fewer that do not have service at speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) available to them. Those locations would be considered unserved and eligible for BEAD funding. But Butman is more excited about the possibility of getting funding through an extension to the FCC Universal Service Fund's Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM program) to deploy fiber to those locations. As he put it, “We see the bigger opportunity with the ACAM extension program to get fiber sooner and to more addresses.” BEAD, he said, “is limited to the non-competitive areas and we just don’t see it.”