Today’s blog talks about the big disappointment being felt by elected officials in Counties all over the Country as word of the NTIA’s new rules for BEAD filters down to them.
I’ve worked across the country with dozens of Counties that committed time and resources to the BEAD process. Many Counties put a lot of effort into the map challenge process. Many Counties carefully interviewed ISPs and chose their favorites – because State BEAD grant rules told them that ISPs would get more grant points with local support. Many Counties went further and made local matching grants to ISPs to support a BEAD application. Some of these grants came out of the general coffers, but many were from ARPA funding. Unfortunately, most of those matching ARPA grants are now lost, and the money will fall to the floor.
Counties made the effort for BEAD because their constituents told them to. I have been in numerous Counties where the elected officials say that fixing broadband is the number one issue they hear about. They can’t stop and pump gas or go to the grocery store without somebody talking to them about poor broadband.
That’s all gone now. Broadband equity grants were completely killed in May. BEAD grants for fiber are all but killed. Almost every County official I talked to wanted BEAD to be used in their County to build fiber. They learned how fiber networks would be good for many decades to come, and they want broadband in rural areas that is as good as in larger towns and cities.
County officials understand better than anybody that better broadband is economic development. They understand that fiber means people will have enough upload speeds to work from home and how higher-paying jobs uplift a local economy. They understand that rural fiber networks are the first step for providing backhaul for rural cell towers – because rural cellular coverage is often even worse than rural broadband coverage.
They were looking at BEAD as a tool that would bolster the future of their County. A large majority of rural Counties are aging and losing population, and they saw fiber as a way to bring good jobs that might stop young folks from leaving the County after they turn eighteen.
County officials that put a lot of time and money into the BEAD process are not going to be happy with the NTIA’s ruling that effectively guts their chance to get fiber. Until this NTIA Notice, broadband has been a non-partisan issue. I remember being in a County Board meeting where Commissioners from both parties joked that getting better broadband is the one issue everybody could agree on. Unfortunately, the NTIA order is completely partisan and seems to be part of a larger effort of the new administration to undo the infrastructure program implemented by the last administration.
County officials don’t understand the need for the big change in BEAD. State Broadband Offices are already in the process this year of awarding grants so that fiber construction could be started soon. Everybody wishes BEAD had moved faster, but they are glad to see it finally moving forward.
The most disheartening thing about the NTIA Notice is seeing all of the effort local folks have made to get better broadband fall by the wayside. I was disappointed the day the BEAD grants were announced because Congress made it too complicated. I’ve written many blogs complaining about the rules and the process. But I never complained about the BEAD goals – because this was the chance to bring fiber infrastructure to thousands of rural counties.
To rub salt in the wound, the NTIA Notice also eliminates the local preference where local governments could give their favorite ISP extra grant points with an exclusive letter of support, and even more points by awarding a local grant.
I hope that a large number of rural elected officials are voicing their unhappiness to federal politicians this week. I doubt there are many members of Congress who haven’t supported BEAD grant applicants with letters of support. And most of them who visit rural areas always mention that better broadband is coming. Congress created the BEAD rules, and at this point they are the only ones who can insist that the NTIA lets the BEAD grant program play out as planned.
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One outcome I worry about is that an FWA provider undercuts satellite, gets a win, but then can’t overcome the barriers to building new tower sites and ends up forfeiting those locations. Like you said, rural areas have worse cellular coverage than broadband coverage; part of that is a lack of fiber backbone to support those towers, part of that is topology that doesn’t often lend itself to efficient deployment of radio signals, and often it’s opposition from the community.
I don’t see how this gets resolved, and we saw how Starlink handled its RDOF commitments, but if I were a state broadband officer, I’d be looking for ways to disqualify FWA and LEO providers by setting a high qualification threshold. Disqualifying providers that have forfeited state or federal grant commitments or that do not have any record of doing business in the state could go a long way.
‘disspointment’ that the scummy deals they made with their favorite vendor is gone and will be difficult to rebuild… So much for that second yacht!
It is a gift to Musk, period, end of story.
might have been but Musk and Trump are no longer lovers so we’ll see about it.
A gift to Musk is a gift to all. No more billions wasted on last mile fiber networks to nowhere. Use a modest amount of that money to build better fiber middle mile and let the free market take care of itself. Always the most efficient way to get a job done. While all the big players jockeyed for their chance at the government spigot the self funded ISP’s reached most of the previously under-serviced rural locations.
Fiber is like electrification, which is why BEAD was created. I’m a middle mile fiber guy, and I don’t see the uptake by potential users.
99% of BEAD eligible locations are already served by Starlink, so it all makes no sense.
I have been tracking Starlink service for two years via RIPE Atlas. Many months the service goes down for 1-2 hours. Often there is an outage over 30 minutes – most likely due to system updates. These generally occur between 1am and 5am. There are other outages of minutes and also many outages for seconds. All of these outages affect service.
I do not think this aspect of Starlink gets enough focus and attention. Rural residents often have few choices. While Starlink is better than many existing alternatives, it is not on par with other many services in terms of reliability. Starlink users often have limited communication options, which increases the need for reliability.
Perhaps reliability is a factor that could be used to disqualify such services.
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