Any changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment should be optional rather than mandatory, a group of 115 state legislators from 28 states said in a letter on Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. It comes after BEAD recently lost its top director, who departed with a scathing letter alleging an impending shift in funding toward Elon Musk’s satellite internet company, Starlink.
Starlink could receive $10 billion to $20 billion of BEAD — up from the $4.1 billion it was expected to get under the old rules –according to a report last month from The Wall Street Journal.
“The Feds broke it and the states fixed it, and the Feds are preparing to break it again,” Missouri State Representative Louis Riggs, a Republican, told CNET. “Why don’t you just leave it up the states to decide what they want to do in terms of technology, instead of putting your thumb on the scale?”
The $42.5 billion broadband infrastructure investment was passed in 2021, and has come under fire from Republicans — and to a lesser extent, Democrats — for its slow rollout. It’s been more than three years since the program was created and still no homes have been connected through BEAD, critics like to point out.
“The reason it took so long for BEAD to be distributed was because the maps sucked. The FCC promulgated maps that were ridiculously incomplete,” Rep. Riggs told CNET. “The states had to literally come along and reinvent the wheel, which was the maps. And it takes time to do that.”
According to the letter signed by the state legislators, BEAD is going “very well.” They point to the competitive bidding process that has resulted in plans for nearly universal coverage. In Louisiana, for example, BEAD contracts will supply fiber coverage to 95% of the state, with wireless, cable and satellite picking up the remaining 5%.
The Department of Commerce and Starlink did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.
Fiber is generally considered the gold standard for broadband, providing fast, reliable speeds capable of handling massive amounts of data. Satellite services like Starlink, however, have much lower speeds — 79Mbps, according to the most recent Ookla data. Fiber providers like AT&T, on the other hand, averaged 361Mbps. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
“Nobody’s talking about speed and what satellites can or can’t do. Fiber can do that today. Fiber can do that 30 or 40 years from now. You dig it once, you forget about it,” Rep. Riggs said. “Just get out of the way. Let the states do the job.”
An analysis shared with Bloomberg from a state broadband official found that fiber’s overall cost to serve a quarter-million homes is about $4 billion less than satellite over 30 years. It also found that fiber would be $15,600 cheaper for users over the same period.
Republicans have been leading the charge on changes to the Biden-era BEAD program, but the letter from state legislators paints a bipartisan picture. Among the signatories are several Republicans from deeply red states, including Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska and North Dakota.
Their message is loud and clear: Let states decide how to proceed with BEAD.
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