- Five years after BEAD’s passage, NTIA says just two states have connected residents with program funds — and neither used fiber
- Lawmakers blasted the shift toward fixed wireless and satellite, questioning whether speed is coming at the expense of quality
- NTIA’s Arielle Roth faced questions about when states will have access to billions in non-deployment funds
Five years after the passage of the $42.5 billion BEAD program, the country has precious little to show for it. During a Congressional hearing, NTIA chief Arielle Roth said just two states thus far have connected citizens using BEAD money – and a number of other states, including California, are still awaiting for final approval of their program propsals.
Under questioning from Florida Congressman Darren Soto about which states have broken ground to date, Roth said Nebraska and Louisiana have both gotten communities connected. She noted that this was done using fixed wireless access service, a technology that was excluded from the BEAD program under the previous administration’s rules.
Roth added that five additional states are poised to connect residents using satellite technology after signing agreements with low-earth orbit providers.
While Roth pitched this to the House Subcommittee on. Communications and Technology as progress, neither Soto nor Congressman Troy Carter from Louisiana agreed.
“Two states is a long cry away from where we need to be,” Soto stated.
Technological disagreements
Carter, meanwhile, challenged Roth on the decision to allow fixed wireless and satellite technology in the BEAD program, arguing those products are “inferior” to the fiber coverage Louisiana had initially planned and received approval for. New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone similarly questioned whether satellite technology had sufficient capacity to adequately serve BEAD locations and asked whether NTIA would publicly release speed and performance data for BEAD-connected locations.
Roth contended that performance rather than the technological delivery vehicle is the “gold standard” for the program and said she disagreed that mandating a single technology would deliver better outcomes. She stated performance data would be released.
Carter also took issue with the NTIA holding up the release of $800 million in non-deployment BEAD funds for the state, which he said were meant to go toward expanding telehealth, beefing up the workforce and improving digital skills.
“Don’t send us backwards when in Louisiana under a Democratic governor and a Republican governor did all the right things and now the people of Louisiana are being punished, one with a delay, two with $800 million in non-deployment funds being frozen, and three now getting an inferior product,” Carter said. “That doesn’t sound like progress, that sounds like gamesmanship.”
While there was no firm answer on when states would get access to the $20 billion in non-deployment funds available to them through BEAD, Roth said the states will eventually get their money “according to the law.” She added guidance on how the non-deployment funds can be used - which was originally due to be released in June - is expected to be released "this summer."
Roth also took heat from several representatives from California, who pressed her on when the state would finally have its BEAD proposal approved. California is one of two states still waiting for NTIA to greenlight its final proposal for the program.
California Congressman Scott Peters noted that after several rounds of proposal curing this spring, “NTIA recently sent California a completely new round of curing requests, with new issues and questions NTIA had never previously raised.” Roth pointed to issues around mapping anomalies and argued it’s NTIA’s duty to protect taxpayer dollars.
Curing defaults
Roth also revealed that around 1% of BEAD locations have been affected by defaults. That would equate to around 42,000 of the approximately 4.2 million eligible locations currently covered by the program. But Roth said NTIA has “successfully backfilled in about a dozen states where that’s occurred.”
Nebraska was among those needing to backfill. The state’s broadband office last month said it planned to reopen its BEAD bidding portal after three ISPs dropped out.