Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program

US states could lose $21 billion of broadband grants after Trump overhaul

The BEAD law is clear that the money can be used for more than sending subsidies to Internet service providers. The law says BEAD money can be allocated for connecting eligible community anchor institutions; data collection, broadband mapping, and planning; installing Internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure or providing reduced-cost broadband to multi-family buildings; and providing affordable Internet-capable devices.

The current law also says that if a state fails to use its full allocation, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) “shall reallocate the unused amounts to other eligible entities with approved final proposals.” The law gives the NTIA chief latitude to spend the money for “any use determined necessary… to facilitate the goals of the Program.”

Arielle Roth, who has overseen the BEAD overhaul in her role as head of the NTIA, has said she’s open to sending the remaining funds to states. Roth said in an October 28 speech that the NTIA is “considering how states can use some of the BEAD savings—what has commonly been referred to as nondeployment money—on key outcomes like permitting reform” but added that “no final decisions have been made.” The Ernst bill would take that decision out of the NTIA’s hands.

States still waiting after Biden plans thrown out

After Congress created BEAD, the Biden administration spent about three years developing rules and procedures for the program and then evaluating plans submitted by each US state and territory. The process included developing new maps that, while error-prone due to false submissions by ISPs, provided a more accurate view of broadband coverage gaps than was previously available.

By November 2024, the Biden administration had approved initial funding plans submitted by every state and territory. But the Trump administration rewrote the program rules, eliminating a preference for fiber and demanding lower-cost deployments.

States that could have started construction in summer 2025 had to draft new plans and keep waiting for the grant money. The Trump administration is also telling states that they must exempt ISPs from net neutrality and price laws in order to obtain grant funding.

As for when the long-delayed grants will be distributed, Roth said the NTIA is “on track to approve the majority of state plans and get money out the door this year.”

US states could lose $21 billion of broadband grants after Trump overhaul Read More »

Trump admin demands states exempt ISPs from net neutrality and price laws

BEAD program, Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Net Neutrality, Policy / Tim Belzer / October 30, 2025

US says net neutrality is price regulation and is banned in $42B grant program.

Credit: Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino

The Trump administration is refusing to give broadband-deployment grants to states that enforce net neutrality rules or price regulations, a Commerce Department official said.

The administration claims that net neutrality rules are a form of rate regulation and thus not allowed under the US law that created the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Commerce Department official Arielle Roth said that any state accepting BEAD funds must exempt Internet service providers from net neutrality and price regulations in all parts of the state, not only in areas where the ISP is given funds to deploy broadband service.

States could object to the NTIA decisions and sue the US government. But even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future.

Roth, an assistant secretary who leads the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), said in a speech at the conservative Hudson Institute on Tuesday:

Consistent with the law, which explicitly prohibits regulating the rates charged for broadband service, NTIA is making clear that states cannot impose rate regulation on the BEAD program. To protect the BEAD investment, we are clarifying that BEAD providers must be protected throughout their service area in a state, while the provider is still within its BEAD period of performance. Specifically, any state receiving BEAD funds must exempt BEAD providers throughout their state footprint from broadband-specific economic regulations, such as price regulation and net neutrality.

Trouble for California and New York

The US law that created BEAD requires Internet providers that receive federal funds to offer at least one “low-cost broadband service option for eligible subscribers,” but also says the NTIA may not regulate broadband prices. “Nothing in this title may be construed to authorize the Assistant Secretary or the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to regulate the rates charged for broadband service,” the law says.

The NTIA is interpreting this law in an expansive way by categorizing net neutrality rules as impermissible rate regulation and by demanding statewide exemptions from state laws for ISPs that obtain grant money.

This would be trouble for California, which has a net neutrality law that’s nearly identical to FCC net neutrality rules repealed during President Trump’s first term. California beat court challenges from Internet providers in cases that upheld its authority to regulate broadband service.

The NTIA stance is also trouble for New York, which has a law requiring ISPs to offer $15 or $20 broadband plans to people with low incomes. New York defeated industry challenges to its law, with the US Supreme Court declining opportunities to overturn a federal appeals court ruling in favor of the state.

But while broadband lobby groups weren’t able to block these state regulations with lawsuits, their allies in the Trump administration want to accomplish the goal by blocking grants that could be used to deploy broadband networks to homes and businesses that are unserved or underserved.

This already had an impact when a California lawmaker dropped a proposal, modeled on New York’s law, to require $15 monthly plans. As we wrote in July, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner said she pulled the bill because the Trump administration said that regulating prices would prevent California from getting its $1.86 billion share of BEAD. But now, California could lose access to the fund anyway due to the NTIA’s stance on net neutrality rules.

We contacted the California and New York governors’ offices about Roth’s comments and will update this article if we get any response.

Roth: State laws “threaten financial viability” of projects

Republicans have long argued that net neutrality is rate regulation, even though the rules don’t directly regulate prices that ISPs charge consumers. California’s law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic, prohibits fees charged to websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic, bans paid data cap exemptions (also known as “zero-rating”), and says that ISPs may not attempt to evade net neutrality protections by slowing down traffic at network interconnection points.

Roth claimed that state broadband laws, even if applied only in non-grant areas, would degrade the service offered by ISPs in locations funded by grants. She said:

Unfortunately, some states have adopted or are considering adopting laws that specifically target broadband providers with rate regulation or state-level net neutrality mandates that threaten the financial viability of BEAD-funded projects and undermine Congress’s goal of connecting unserved communities.

Rate regulation drives up operating costs and scares off investment, especially in high-cost areas where every dollar counts. State-level net neutrality rules—itself a form of rate regulation—create a patchwork of conflicting regulations that raise compliance costs and deter investment.

These burdens don’t just hurt BEAD providers; they hurt the very households BEAD is meant to connect by reducing capital available for the hardest-to-reach communities. In some cases, they can divert investment away from BEAD areas altogether, as providers redirect resources to their lower-cost, lower-risk, non-BEAD markets.

State broadband laws “could create perverse incentives” by “pressuring providers to shift resources away from BEAD commitments to subsidize operations in non-BEAD areas subject to burdensome state rules,” Roth said. “That would increase the likelihood of defaults and defeat the purpose of BEAD’s once-in-a-generation investment.”

The NTIA decision not to give funds to states that enforce such rules “is essential to ensure that BEAD funds go where Congress intended—to build and operate networks in hard-to-serve areas—not to prop up regulatory experiments that drive investment away,” she said.

States are complying, Roth says

Roth indicated that at least some states are complying with the NTIA’s demands. These demands also include cutting red tape related to permits and access to utility poles and increasing the amount of matching dollars that ISPs themselves put into the projects. “In the coming weeks we will announce the approval of several state plans that incorporate these commitments,” she said. “We remain on track to approve the majority of state plans and get money out the door this year.”

Before Trump won the election, the Biden administration developed rules for BEAD and approved initial funding plans submitted by every state and territory. The Trump administration’s overhaul of the program rules has delayed the funding.

While the Biden NTIA pushed states to require specific prices for low-income plans, the Biden administration prohibited states “from explicitly or implicitly setting the LCSO [low-cost service option] rate” that ISPs must offer. Instead, ISPs get to choose what counts as “low-cost.”

The Trump administration also removed a preference for fiber projects, resulting in more money going to satellite providers—though not as much as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has demanded. The changes imposed by the Trump NTIA have caused states to allocate less funding overall, leading to an ongoing dispute over what will happen to the $42 billion program’s leftover money.

Roth said the NTIA is “considering how states can use some of the BEAD savings—what has commonly been referred to as nondeployment money—on key outcomes like permitting reform,” but added that “no final decisions have been made.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

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Can we please keep our broadband money, Republican governor asks Trump admin

BEAD program, Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Policy, trump administration / Rejus Almole / September 10, 2025

Landry’s letter reminded Lutnick that “Congress granted NTIA clear authority” to distribute the remaining broadband funds to states. The law says that after approving a state’s plan, the NTIA “shall make available to the eligible entity the remainder of the grant funds allocated,” and “explicitly grants you wide discretion in directing how these remaining funds can be used for ‘any use determined necessary… to facilitate the goals of the Program,'” Landry wrote.

Landry asked Lutnick to issue clear guidance on the use of remaining grant funds by October 1, and suggested that grant awards be “announced by you and President Trump no later than January 20, 2026.”

Republican governors could sway Trump admin

Levin wrote that Louisiana’s proposal is likely to be supported by other states, even if many of them would prefer the money to be spent on broadband-specific projects.

“We expect most, if not all, of the governors to support Landry’s position; they might not agree with the limits he proposes but they would all prefer to spend the money in their state rather than return the funds to the Treasury,” Levin wrote. “We also think the law is on the side of the states in the sense that the law clearly contemplates and authorizes states to spend funds on projects other than connecting unserved and underserved locations.”

Levin believes Lutnick wants to return unspent funds to the Treasury, but that other Republican governors asking for the money could shift his thinking. “If enough Republican governors and members of Congress weigh in supporting the Landry plan, we think the odds favor Lutnick agreeing to its terms,” he wrote.

Levin wrote that “Commerce agreeing to Landry’s request would avoid a potentially difficult political and legal fight.” But he also pointed out that there would be lawsuits from Democratic state officials if the Trump administration directs a lopsided share of remaining funds to Republican states.

“Democratic Governors might feel queasy about the Landry request that would allow the secretary to reassign funds to other states, but that is still better than an immediate return to Treasury and keeps open the possibility of litigation if Commerce approves red state projects while rejecting blue state projects that do the same thing,” Levin wrote.

Can we please keep our broadband money, Republican governor asks Trump admin Read More »

SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink

Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Policy, spacex, starlink / Mike M. / August 20, 2025

Starlink operator SpaceX is continuing its fight against state plans to expand fiber broadband availability. After saying the Trump administration should deny a Virginia proposal, SpaceX is taking the same approach in a fight against Louisiana.

SpaceX made its view known to the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity in a filing, which was reported yesterday by PCMag. SpaceX complained that Louisiana proposed awarding 91.5 percent of funds to fiber Internet service providers instead of to the Starlink satellite system. SpaceX alleged that Louisiana was influenced by “a legion of fiber lobbyists and other hangers-on seeking to personally benefit from massive taxpayer spending.”

The Trump administration rewrote rules for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program in a way that benefits Starlink. Instead of prioritizing fiber networks that offer better service and are more future-proof, the Trump administration ordered states to revise their plans with a “tech-neutral approach” and lower the average cost of serving each location.

SpaceX’s letters to Virginia and Louisiana claim the states are violating the new rules with their funding proposals.

“The State of Louisiana’s Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program Final Proposal proposes to spend nearly $500 million dollars [sic] to provide connectivity to its unserved and underserved locations,” SpaceX wrote. “SpaceX applied to serve virtually all BEAD households for less than $100 million dollars. As such, Louisiana’s proposal includes over $400 million dollars in wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer spending.”

SpaceX unhappy with $7.75 million

Instead of selecting Starlink for all locations, Louisiana allocated the company $7.75 million to serve 10,327 locations. The plan would spend $499 million for 127,842 locations overall. The Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium, which includes two Louisiana providers that partnered with T-Mobile, was the biggest winner, with $378 million for 68,535 locations.

“Louisiana’s results demonstrate that it did not observe statutory requirements or program rules and did not conduct a competitive process,” SpaceX alleged. “A process in which Louisiana is required to award grants based on the lowest cost to the program, and awards 91.5% of funds to fiber projects at an average per-location cost of $4,449, while rejecting applications at $750 per location because the bid was based on Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) technology could not possibly be considered compliant, technology neutral or a ‘competition.'”

SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink Read More »

Starlink tries to block Virginia’s plan to bring fiber Internet to residents

Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Policy, spacex, starlink / Tim Belzer / August 15, 2025

Noting that its “project areas span from mountains and hills to farmland and coastal plains,” the DHCD said its previous experience with grant-funded deployments “revealed that tree canopy, rugged terrain, and slope can complicate installation and/or obstruct line-of-sight.” State officials said that wireless and low-Earth orbit satellite technology “can have signal degradation, increased latency, and reduced reliability” when there isn’t a clear line of sight.

The DHCD said it included these factors in its evaluation of priority broadband projects. State officials were also apparently concerned about the network capacity of satellite services and the possibility that using state funding to guarantee satellite service in one location could reduce availability of that same service in other locations.

“To review a technology’s ability to scale, the Office considered the currently served speeds of 100/20 Mbps, an application’s stated network capacity, the project area’s number of [locations], the project area’s geographic area, current customer base (if applicable), and future demand,” the department said. “For example, the existing customer base should not be negatively impacted by the award of BEAD locations for a given technology to be considered scalable.”

SpaceX: “Playing field was anything but level”

SpaceX said Virginia is wrong to determine that Starlink “did not qualify as ‘Priority Broadband,'” since the company “provided information demonstrating these capabilities in its application, and it appears that Virginia used this definition only as a pretext to reach a pre-ordained outcome.” SpaceX said that 95 percent of funded “locations in Virginia have an active Starlink subscriber within 1 mile, showing that Starlink already serves every type of environment in Virginia’s BEAD program today” and that 15 percent of funded locations have an active Starlink subscriber within 100 meters.

“The playing field was anything but level and technology neutral, as required by the [updated program rules], and was instead insurmountably stacked against low-Earth orbit satellite operators like SpaceX,” the company said.

We contacted the Virginia DHCD about SpaceX’s comments today and will update this article if the department provides a response.

Starlink tries to block Virginia’s plan to bring fiber Internet to residents Read More »

Trump admin warns states: Don’t try to lower broadband prices

Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Policy / Mike M. / August 6, 2025

The Trump administration is telling states they will be shut out of a $42 billion broadband deployment fund if they set the rates that Internet service providers receiving subsidies are allowed to charge people with low incomes.

The latest version of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) FAQ on the grant program, released today, is a challenge to states considering laws that would force Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people who meet income eligibility guidelines. One state already has such a law: New York requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in the state to offer $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds.

Other states have been considering similar laws and were initially emboldened by New York winning a yearslong court battle against ISPs that tried to invalidate the state law. But states may now be dissuaded by the Trump administration’s stance against price mandates being applied to the grant program.

As we wrote in a July 22 article, California Assemblymember Tasha Boerner told Ars that she pulled a bill requiring $15 broadband plans after NTIA officials informed her that it could jeopardize the state’s access to broadband grants. The NTIA’s new FAQ makes the agency’s stance against state laws even clearer.

ISPs get to choose price of low-cost plan

The NTIA rules concern the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which is distributing $42.45 billion to states for grants that would be given to ISPs that expand broadband access. Although the US law that created BEAD requires Internet providers receiving federal funds to offer at least one “low-cost broadband service option for eligible subscribers,” it also says the NTIA may not “regulate the rates charged for broadband service.”

Trump admin warns states: Don’t try to lower broadband prices Read More »

“Two years of work in two months”: States cope with Trump broadband overhaul

BEAD program, Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program, Policy / Mike M. / June 13, 2025

Trump overhaul of $42B broadband fund upends states’ plans to expand access.

Spools of fiber conduits for broadband network construction. Credit: Getty Images | Akchamczuk

The Trump administration has upended plans that state governments made to distribute $42 billion in federal broadband funding, forcing state officials to scrap much of the preparation work they did over the previous couple of years.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick essentially put the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program on hold earlier this year and last week announced details of a rules overhaul that requires states to change how they distribute money to Internet service providers. To find out how this affects states, we spoke with Andrew Butcher, president of the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA).

“We had been in position to be making awards this month, but for [the Trump administration’s] deliberations and program changes, so it’s pretty unfortunate,” Butcher told Ars. Established by a 2021 state law, the MCA is a quasi-governmental agency that oversees Maine’s BEAD planning and other programs that increase broadband access.

“This is the construction season,” Butcher said. “We planned it so that projects would be able to get ready with their pre-construction activities and their construction activities beginning in the summer, so they would have all summer and through the fall and early winter to get in motion.” The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a division of the Commerce Department, “has now essentially relegated the process to not even begin pre-construction until late fall, early winter at the earliest,” he said.

The Biden administration spent about three years developing rules and procedures for BEAD and then evaluating plans submitted by each US state and territory. Maine has been working on its plans for about two years, Butcher said. The process included analyzing which addresses in Maine are unserved and eligible for funding to subsidize network construction, and inviting ISPs to bid on projects. Maine and other states will have to go through the bidding process with ISPs again due to the overhaul.

Two years of work in two months

The change “undoubtedly creates additional work and effort for Maine and every other state and territory,” Butcher said. “So we will execute it as quickly and efficiently as possible, but it kind of jams two years of work into two months.” The new timeline is difficult, but “Secretary Lutnick has committed that funds will be awarded and projects started this year. We’re going to hold them to that,” he said.

Butcher said he was relieved that the BEAD program wasn’t canceled entirely. He pointed to President Trump’s recent move to kill the separate $2.7 billion grant program created by the Digital Equity Act of 2021.

Maine was supposed to receive $35 million from the Digital Equity Act for several programs that would provide devices, digital skills training, STEM education, telehealth access, and other services. Trump claimed the Digital Equity Act is “racist and illegal.”

Butcher said that “for all anyone knows, it was canceled simply because the word ‘equity’ is in it.” He pointed out that the same word appears in the title of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Given that, “the updated policy guidance for the BEAD program could have been worse,” Butcher said.

US eliminates fiber preference

Lutnick and other Republicans didn’t like the Biden administration’s decision to prioritize the building of fiber networks in BEAD, arguing that fixed wireless and satellite services like Starlink should have an equal shot at obtaining grants. The NTIA said on June 6 that states and territories must conduct “an additional ‘Benefit of the Bargain Round’ of subgrantee selection that permits all applicants to compete on a level playing field.” That will give non-fiber ISPs a better chance to obtain grants.

Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration of forcing states to subsidize Starlink instead of more robust fiber networks.

“States must maintain the flexibility to choose the highest quality broadband options, rather than be forced by bureaucrats in Washington to funnel funds to Elon Musk’s Starlink, which lacks the scalability, reliability, and speed of fiber or other terrestrial broadband solutions,” Senate Democrats wrote in a May 30 letter to Trump and Lutnick. The letter said that forcing states to scrap their previous work could cause them to “not only miss this year’s construction season but next year’s as well, delaying broadband deployment by years.”

Commerce Secretary slammed cost

Lutnick has pushed for lower per-location costs and made a social media post criticizing Nevada’s plans. “The Biden Administration approved their BEAD application with 24 project areas in the state with a PER LOCATION cost of over $100,000 each, incredible,” Lutnick wrote. “One location cost over $228,000!! We will stop this absurd spending while delivering the benefit of the bargain by connecting unserved communities with satellite, fixed wireless, and/or fiber: whichever makes the most economic sense.”

Lutnick also complained that “Congress set aside $42.45 billion for rural broadband in November 2021. More than three years later, not a single person has been connected to the Internet under the BEAD program.”

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) called Lutnick’s complaint disingenuous. “You’ve been holding up BEAD funding that was already APPROVED for my state since January, and you’re complaining no one has been connected yet?” she wrote.

Butcher said he trusts the expertise of Nevada’s broadband office to “make the most of the available funding,” even if Lutnick thinks the state is spending too much in some areas. “We are talking about facilitating a once-in-a-lifetime level of critical infrastructure investment,” Butcher said. “Every place is going to be different.”

Butcher said Lutnick is exercising “authority as a central government over the rights and expertise of a state body, which I guess I don’t understand how the party’s values work anymore, but that to me feels like a pretty strange Republican imposition.”

Butcher still expects significant fiber deployment

Overall, Nevada’s plan was to use $416 million to connect 43,715 households and businesses. Maine was to receive about $272 million, which Butcher said would “provide deployment to about 25,000 unserved households and businesses” and about 3,500 community anchor institutions. Anchor institutions under the BEAD program can include places like schools, libraries, hospitals and other health facilities, public safety facilities, public housing, and community centers.

“With our available funding, we really don’t have the ability to consider a cost per passing anywhere near” the $228,000 example cited by Lutnick, Butcher said. “We have to be resourceful and efficient in the decision-making… to squeeze the value out of that as much as possible.”

Fiber is Butcher’s first choice, and he said he is not convinced that the Trump administration’s new guidelines will significantly reduce the amount of fiber deployment that ultimately happens once BEAD funds are finally spent.

“The introduction of more of a preference or bias towards the cheapest deployment option… actually may very well drive competition and further incentivize fiber providers to be more aggressive” in their bids for projects, he said.

Still, he said the cost of laying fiber lines in certain locations means that wireless and satellite networks have their place. “There are some places where fiber is a prohibitive cost. Maine is a big place without a lot of people,” Butcher said.

Starlink not the first choice

When the government gives money to a fiber ISP to subsidize deployment, it’s easy to see the results: The provider is required under the terms of the grant to install fiber at homes and businesses that weren’t previously served. The benefits aren’t as immediately clear with Starlink, which is already deploying satellites that can serve most of the country.

But residents can benefit from deals between Starlink and local governments by gaining access to equipment and higher levels of service. Maine already partnered with Starlink last year to coordinate bulk purchases of equipment for Internet users and guarantee service availability.

Starlink availability and speed varies by region. But with last year’s deal between Maine and Starlink, “we’ve been able to establish a network reservation to ensure a higher standard of service performance,” Butcher said. He called Starlink a great option for remote areas but said that satellite is “far from the policy standard that we should be looking to” for every location in Maine.

Despite the BEAD holdup and Digital Equity Act cancellation, the MCA has been distributing other funds. “Over the last three years, MCA has facilitated over $250 million in public and private investments to address about 86,000 unserved locations,” Butcher said.

With the BEAD changes, Butcher said the MCA is ready to do the work needed to obtain the funding. “I think in the context of our DOGE environment, it’s important to note that teams like the MCA team are ready to rise to the moment and to do really hard work. But this is the kind of thing that absolutely grinds people down,” Butcher said. “It’s not just MCA, it’s this entire network of Internet service providers, their subcontractors, workforce training providers, community volunteer broadband committees. These investments are reflective of an entire ecosystem which doesn’t just entail pole-in-the-ground and attaching wires to the pole and equipment to that. It is a robust set of public-private partnerships.”

“Two years of work in two months”: States cope with Trump broadband overhaul Read More »