Individuals who primarily Reside in a Rural Area

The Trump administration is making changes to the Broadband Equity and Access Deployment Program (BEAD) Program that will benefit satellite internet providers like Elon Musk’s Starlink, but some state and federal officials worry the technology isn’t robust enough to connect Americans on a mass scale and at affordable rates. State and former federal officials, several of whom spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity, described pitfalls with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s new approach, which gives more opportunities for satellite terminals that are initially inexpensive, but can

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has listed expanding affordable, high-quality broadband to every American as an objective in its 20222026 Strategic Plan. However, the combination of standing up new broadband programs and increasing access to broadband is an ongoing, nationwide challenge. The evaluation objective was to identify potential challenges for deploying broadband to underserved and unserved communities.

Fiber vendors have long been banking on the promise of revenue opportunities via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program and rural broadband expansion, but the hype is simmering down in light of fiber's uncertainty in the new administration. As a result, communications equipment vendors are eyeing greener pastures. For the most part, vendors are “being pretty quiet about the BEAD opportunity because so much is still up in the air,” said Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen.

Lawyers defending the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to manage a longstanding $8.1 billion broadband subsidy expressed cautious optimism ahead of the March 26 Supreme Court oral arguments in FCC v.

The United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development (RD), which is comprised of the Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBCS), Rural Utilities Service (RUS), and Rural Housing Service (RHS), is amending 14 program funding opportunities to remove references to the Biden Administration’s key priorities and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related scoring criteria to bring them into compliance with the Executive Order, ‘‘Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing’’, issued on January 20, 2025.

Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe. In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut out during the Biden era. At NASA, after repeated nudges by Mr. Musk, the agency is being squeezed to turn its focus to Mars, allowing SpaceX to pursue federal contracts to deliver the first humans to the distant planet.

Elon Musk’s Starlink is set to cement its dominance of the satellite internet market with a surge in revenues in 2025, but the world’s richest man’s ties to President Donald Trump are shifting from an asset to a hindrance in Starlink's global rollout. The billionaire’s SpaceX group is engaged in talks to rapidly bring the service to countries with 1 billion potential new users, including holding negotiations with Turkey, Morocco and Bangladesh, while making progress towards regulatory approval in other vast markets such as India.

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 260 homes and small businesses in rural areas of Pike County (OH), with additional launches planned across the county. Spectrum’s multi-year rural construction initiative is driven by more than $7 billion in private investment from the company and will ultimately add an additional 100,000+ miles of fiber-optic network infrastructure and deliver symmetrical and multi-gigabit speed internet access to more than 1.7 million new locations across the country.

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary touted Elon Musk’s Starlink to federal officials in charge of a $42 billion rural broadband programme, raising new questions about the billionaire White House adviser’s conflicts of interest. In a private meeting in the Herbert Hoover building near the White House, Secretary Howard Lutnick told civil servants at the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) programme to increase the project’s use of satellite connectivity — over fibre-optic cable — and singled out Musk’s provider, Starlink.

Federal law seeks to make communications technology like telephones and the internet, in the words of one older statute, “available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States.” A longstanding federal program that seeks to implement this goal is now before the Supreme Court, in a case known as FCC v. Consumers’ Research, and the stakes could be enormous.