Licensed Spectrum and Broadband Mapping

Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants in a given location could go sideways because of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)’s decision to declare facility-based wireless technologies that use licensed spectrum to be considered as a reliable technology that is eligible for BEAD grants. I can foresee two different problems that might result from this decision. The first problem I foresee is that these wireless carriers can use the upcoming Federal Communications Commission broadband mapping update to lock down huge areas of real estate from eligibility for BEAD grants. Anywhere that these carriers claim speeds of 100/20 Mbps in the next set of FCC maps will be initially declared by the BEAD rules to be served and ineligible for grants. Secondly, if the wireless carriers with fast licensed spectrum report properly in the new maps, there are going to be splotches of areas around every rural cell tower that will be off-limits for grants. In the same way that the swiss cheese Rural Digital Opportunity Fund awards goofed up anybody else from bringing a fiber broadband solution, these fixed wireless or cellular blotches will make it hard to build a coherent network in areas that have to avoid the wireless areas. In a real deployment, A broadband provider will likely build to everybody in an area – but because of the mapping rules, they won’t get grant funding everywhere.

[Doug Dawson is president of CCG Consulting.]