The Biden administration’s signature broadband buildout program could be headed for failure, according to more than 30 executives of broadband companies and trade groups.
The bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 set aside over $42 billion for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program to fund a nationwide buildout of broadband internet, especially in areas of the country that lag behind in terms of internet connectivity.
However, more than 30 broadband company and trade group executives wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Tuesday to inform her that her agency and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration are administering the BEAD program in a way that endangers its success and contravenes the language of the infrastructure law.
“It is with both a sense of alarm and urgency that we write to alert you to the reality that growing numbers of the hundreds of local and regional rural broadband providers we represent are increasingly concerned about their ability to participate in the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which your agency administers,” the letter states. “Without significant and immediate changes of approach toward its implementation, we are concerned the program will fail to advance our collective goal of connectivity for all in America.
“We and our members sincerely want this program to work, but we believe that your agency’s administration of the low-cost service option requirement in particular risks putting the overall success of BEAD in jeopardy.”
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The executives allege that NTIA is pushing for broadband companies partaking in the program provide eligible customers with a $30 low-cost monthly rate service option.
The letter’s authors say that this rate is economically unviable for companies looking to provide service in the rural, hard-to-reach parts of the country BEAD was designed to serve, and that NTIA may be not be complying with terms of the infrastructure law that prohibit the agency from regulating rates charged for broadband service.
The executives charge that some states, like Pennsylvania, have acknowledged that the low-cost rate should be higher than $30 because of the costs incurred to broadband companies that are looking to provide service in remote regions with less infrastructure.
However, NTIA allegedly has advised state officials to reduce the rate to bring it closer to $30 per month anyways, according to the letter’s text.
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The White House has touted BEAD as one of the Biden administration’s key domestic programs.
“In addition to helping connect everyone in America to high-speed internet, this funding will support manufacturing jobs and crowd in private sector investment by using materials Made in America,” the White House said of the program when funding allocations were announced in June 2023.
Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr told Congress that the program “is going off the rails” and that not a single American has so far gained operational internet access via BEAD as of July 9.
Neither the Department of Commerce nor the NTIA responded immediately to requests for comment.
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