Another BEAD Mapping Mess

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration made a monstrous mess of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program maps when they decided to allow licensed fixed wireless to be counted as reliable broadband. This has a huge ramification for the BEAD grants. It has made maps into hodgepodges of served and unserved homes. The problem is that providers will still have to build fiber along roads where some homes are already considered to be served. There is zero savings on fiber construction compared to a network where every home is considered to be unserved, but cost-per-passing can almost double because providers will not be funded for the homes that are already served. I think there are going to be several bad consequences of the NTIA ruling on licensed wireless. First, states have been doing back-of-the-envelope math to see if they have enough money to serve everybody. This is going to be a nightmare when administering grants.