How far might broadband funding go? Estimating and visualizing the BEAD program

Combining “cost to serve” estimates for any un- and under-served location in US with data on the number of un- and underserved we can estimate how far broadband funding might go. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program won't provide any funding where the Federal Communications Commission has committed Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support. And the National Telecommunications and Information Administration hopes to not provide 100% of the costs for new networks—I’m assuming that private capital provides 25% of the remaining necessary funding. With these assumptions, we can fund networks for all unserved areas with just over $10 billion. Even assuming locations cost more to connect than previously estimated and that new Federal Communications Commission maps identify more locations that are unserved, the $42 billion available in BEAD would cover about 65% of the existing un- and underserved.