Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that his department is “ripping out” the “pointless requirements” inserted by former President Joe Biden into a major broadband program that is set to deliver high-speed internet to millions of Americans. Some broadband analysts have shared Lutnick’s frustration with the requirements in BEAD, which has been in planning and contracting for three years. Michael Santorelli, a director at the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School, said there are numerous things that the Trump administration could do to accelerate deployment, including providing states clearer guidance and removing requirements related to worker wages, climate resistance and experimentation with business models. But Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, said that if Donald Trump’s Commerce Department moves forward with changes, it could further delay the deployment of broadband internet by a year or more because states will be required to re-run their grant programs. “This to us is penny wise, pound foolish, because while it may be cheaper up front for BEAD to go with the less expensive option now, it’s much more expensive to the consumer,” Garner said. “And over time, due to the repeated investments and the need to maintain satellites, it does end up potentially costing just as much or more than fiber. And it provides worse service.” Garner added, “We just think it’s tragic to take this genuinely historic opportunity to bring affordable, reliable high-speed internet to places that have probably never had it before, to take that opportunity away from these 24 million Americans and instead give them some half-measure." Garner said he worries that opting for cheaper technologies, rather than investing in a reliable, long-life technology like fiber, will lead BEAD down the same path as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a program created by the Federal Communications Commission during the first Trump administration. An analysis published last month by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society shows that roughly one-third of the $9.2 billion in RDOF awards is now in default, and 1.9 million locations once set to receive internet service will not receive service.

Rep Richard Hudson (R-NC), who serves as the Chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led Republican members of the subcommittee in introducing the Streamlining Program Efficiency and Expanding Deployment (SPEED) for BEAD Act. The SPEED for BEAD Act:

• Renames the program the Broadband Expansion, Access, and Deployment program, to ensure its focus is on expanding broadband access and deployment, not other issues;
• Clarifies that the program can utilize all technologies to close the digital divide;
• Ensures that funds are used for deployment and workforce development;
• Allows providers more flexibility in the projects they choose to bid on;
• Eliminates the burdensome conditions imposed by the Biden-Harris Administration, including those related to labor, climate change, and rate regulation, that made deployment more expensive and participation less attractive.

It looks like Elon Musk’s Starlink service is going to get a big boost from the U.S. government. States will be able to award more Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds to satellite-internet providers like Starlink, as well as to more fixed wireless access (FWA) providers, rather than mainly to companies that lay fiber-optic cables. Personally, I think it will be a shame to squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach as many homes as possible with fiber via the $42.5 billion in BEAD funds. Fiber offers the best technology to deliver the highest broadband speeds, and it’s generally more reliable than wireless or satellite, which can be interrupted by weather. In my opinion, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is under the Commerce Department, has worked really hard for the past three years to set out reasonable rules for BEAD technologies. It  smells kind of fishy that Musk has such a chummy relationship with Trump and is now set to personally benefit from the government’s BEAD program changes. I think the thing that offends me most about all of this is the prospect of more space junk. Starlink already has more than 7,000 satellites orbiting Earth. It will undoubtedly need to deploy thousands more satellites if states award a lot of BEAD grants to Starlink.

SpaceX’s Starlink is dipping its toes into the affordable broadband market, with the launch of its “Residential Lite” service in 15 U.S. states. While it’s cheaper than Starlink’s standard residential plan, the move is hardly a gamechanger for rural broadband connectivity. First things first, it’s not quite a new offering, as Starlink first rolled out the plan across some markets in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Oceania. But only now is Residential Lite entering the U.S. scene. Residential Lite costs $80 per month (compared to the $120/month residential plan), with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps. So, it’s not as fast as the standard plan which offers 150-250 Mbps speeds. Notably, Starlink said Residential Lite service will be “deprioritized” during peak hours. This means customers on the lower-cost plan may experience slower service compared to Residential subscribers when the Starlink network has a lot of users online. Considering Starlink’s capacity constraints (as it has an ever-expanding waitlist), that’s not surprising to hear. Though Residential Lite is marketed as a more affordable Starlink option, “no matter how you look at it $80 is still a high price,” said Recon Analytics principal Roger Entner.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) says he hopes to bring a resolution to the Senate to repeal the funding of Internet hot spots from the E-Rate Program, which is part of the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund. The original support for funding hot spots came from a July 2024 vote of the FCC under then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to allow the E-Rate program to pay for hot spots. For those not familiar with E-Rate, the program is used to subsidize broadband connections in schools that qualify by having a high percentage of students participating in the federal school lunch program. Like other bills and initiatives currently aimed at the Universal Service Fund, this effort might soon be moot since there is a pending case at the Supreme Court, with oral arguments scheduled on March 26, that asks if the USF is constitutional. The case asks if the FCC has the authority to establish the USF and if it can assign the administration of the fund to USAC. If the Court rules that the USF is unconstitutional, then the fund will likely go immediately dead unless Congress steps in to immediately save it.