Sen John Curtis touches on the ‘fundamental flaw’ of BEAD

The trade group ACA Connects kicked off its annual summit with what’s on the forefront of everyone’s mind right now – the state of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program. Changes to BEAD are imminent, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick plans to eliminate the program’s fiber preference. But Sen John Curtis (R-UT) didn’t talk about that in the opening keynote. Rather, he noted BEAD—and federal broadband programs in general—have a “fundamental flaw.” Plainly put, a lot of members in Congress don’t entirely understand all the underlying issues with broadband access. Curtis recalled how Congress a couple of years ago was debating how much to raise the minimum fixed broadband speed. It was “almost like they were talking about their gas mileage,” he said. “I said, ‘when was the last time any of you ran a speed test?’ And they looked at me like I was on another planet.”