Rep Rick Allen (R-GA-12) reintroduced the Broadband Expansion and Deployment Fee Equity and Efficiency Act of 2025, or "BEAD FEE Act." This legislation will improve transparency in the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program—allowing accountability for application fees. The bill restricts recipients of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants from charging fees related to the deployment of broadband infrastructure. The BEAD Program provides funds to states and territories for broadband deployment, connectivity, mapping, and adoption projects. Generally, the bill prohibits grant recipients from charging fees for (1) considering requests for deploying broadband infrastructure; or (2) using or accessing land, or existing infrastructure on land, that is owned or managed by a state, territory, or locality (i.e., a right-of-way) to deploy broadband infrastructure. However, the bill permits recipients to charge fees if they are nondiscriminatory, publicly disclosed, and based on actual and direct costs. Additionally, recipients must describe the fees in a manner that distinguishes between (1) recurring and nonrecurring fees, and (2) using a right-of-way with and without existing infrastructure.

Vermont’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program is now accepting proposals from Internet Service Providers to implement Vermont’s $239 million, federally funded program to deploy broadband internet service throughout the state. The VT-BEAD Full Proposal portal will close at 11:55pm on April 16, 2025. Only those ISPs that submitted a VT-BEAD Pre-proposal are eligible to submit Full Proposals. Prospective Subrecipients who did not submit a Pre-proposal should visit VCBB’s website to understand how to determine whether they can apply. The VCBB is aware that the BEAD program is under federal review and will keep Prospective Subrecipients apprised of any changes that will affect the Full Proposal process, including changes to scoring. Until any notice from the NTIA, the VCBB will continue to implement the VT-BEAD program in accordance with Vermont’s Initial Proposal.

For many years, the satellite industry faced a PR challenge: being out of sight and, therefore, out of mind. That's the case with geostationary orbit satellites, which fly some 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above a designated spot on the equator. The debut of SpaceX's Starlink low-earth orbit satellite broadband service in 2020 began shifting that perception. Starlink's launch has impacted more than industry PR. Several established operators are still adjusting to Starlink's success, notably through accelerated deployment of multi-orbit services involving some combination of LEO, GEO and medium earth orbit satellites. GEO-only solutions are less suitable than LEO for latency-sensitive applications, struggle to cover high-latitude regions and can be vulnerable to congestion and interference. However, they offer real benefits, including longevity, stability, high capacity, scalability and lower network complexity.