Retaining the Power of States to Make Technology Decisions on BEAD Funding

Looking back on the bipartisan Infrastructure Act and its early days, the push by many at that time was fiber only and fiber everywhere. And if you are following the recent news that pendulum has swung to people insisting that Starlink is the solution for all remaining unserved and underserved locations. But if you look at the states that have moved forward in their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment implementation process, you see that neither of these scenarios is what is happening on the ground. As it turns out, when the locations for deployment become clear and the cost of deploying to those locations can be determined, the economics reveal that the broadband access gap will be solved using a mix of technologies that includes fiber, fixed wireless, and low-earth orbit satellite service and a broad range of companies. And that is how it should be. Bidders are being asked by states, which now control BEAD’s implementation, how much they would need to serve unserved and underserved locations. States are then choosing the winning bidders based on funding availability and the policy choices they made that are embodied in their BEAD proposals.