Retaining the Power of States to Make Technology Decisions on BEAD Funding
Greg Guice | March 17, 2025
Looking back on the bipartisan Infrastructure Act and its early days, the push by many at that time was fiber only and fiber everywhere. And if you are following the recent news that pendulum has swung to people insisting that Starlink is the solution for all remaining unserved and underserved locations. But if you look at the states that have moved forward in their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) implementation process, you see that neither of these scenarios is what is happening on the ground. As it turns out, when the locations for deployment become clear and the cost of deploying to those locations can be determined, the economics reveal that the broadband access gap will be solved using a mix of technologies that includes fiber, fixed wireless, and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite service and a broad range of companies. And that is how it should be. Bidders are being asked by states, which now control BEAD’s implementation, how much they would need to serve unserved and underserved locations. States are then choosing the winning bidders based on funding availability and the policy choices they made that are embodied in their BEAD proposals.
Vernonburg Group has been demonstrating the wisdom of allowing states flexibility to make those technology decisions since the early days of this debate. Our Broadband Funding Optimization Tool, first released in late 2023 and updated quarterly since, has provided state broadband offices, federal policymakers, and other stakeholders an opportunity to see what technology preferences may mean for their particular BEAD objectives. We allow users to calibrate the tool to fit user-defined assumptions and their unique scenarios regarding a number of the variables. It can, for example, show a broadband office how to ensure not just connectivity to all unserved and underserved locations using a mix of technologies, but also how they can reserve funding to connect community anchor institutions across their state, advance digital skills training for their population, or help educate provide for workforce training and new job opportunities for people, all of which are provided for in the Infrastructure Act as an appropriate use of funds.
In the context of the current debate, the tool also demonstrates that each technology, including LEO satellite service, has a role to play and that the mix of technology will vary by state and in many instances it will vary greatly. What this in turn means is that as a policy matter NTIA should allow states the flexibility they need to navigate to the solution that works best for them, instead of placing a thumb on the scale in favor of a particular technology.