The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program has taken a step closer to becoming reality, with state and territory funding allocations having been announced. Now, states and territories must submit their five-year plans to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to describe how they will use that funding to close the digital divide in their respective geographies.
Each participating state was guaranteed at least $100 million in BEAD funding, as part of the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that became law in 2021 (See the state-level breakdowns here). Nineteen states will end up with more than $1 billion through BEAD for high-speed broadband deployment, with the stated requirement to connect every American by 2030.
But will the BEAD program be enough? And how will the technology choices for deployment impact the cost and speed of deployment? The tension between fiber deployment and wireless home broadband has been evident in the jockeying as the implementation of BEAD has taken shape: Wireline players have emphasized fiber as the gold standard for high-speed, high-capacity networks and long-term infrastructure investment. Wireless industry players, meanwhile, have touted the lower cost, faster deployment time and increased capability of wireless broadband in the age of 5G and CBRS, as well as the ability of wireless to serve geographically difficult locations that are disproportionately expensive for the number of people served. Most, though, recognize that both fiber and wireless broadband need to be tools that are deployed as needed to balance the cost and specific challenges of any individual deployment location.
And as positive as the industry reactions to the BEAD allocation announcement have been, some have broached the less-rosy implications and complications that have to be addressed. Money solves a lot of problems, but despite the historic levels of broadband funding that have been pumped into the economy over the past several years, it doesn’t solve everything.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime investment, and it is critical that we get the details right as we now enter critical stages of implementation,” said Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. “As states step even more into the driver’s seat, we must aim high in our connectivity objectives and continue working to ensure that funding is distributed to areas where it is needed most, streamline permitting processes so that providers can meet program deadlines, and find a path to a workable resolution on the Buy America provisions in the program. We also urge Congress to address taxation issues so that the full amounts awarded can be put to work in building networks and bridging the digital divide.”
“The BEAD funding will take a while to reach the right companies and households, and we cannot expect it to close the digital divide overnight. A concerted effort from companies across the telecoms sector is now required to reach those most at risk of being left behind as quickly as possible,” said Gary Smith, CEO of networking and infrastructure company Ciena. “Greater collaboration and infrastructure sharing, alongside further investment in software and automation, will lower the cost for service providers to extend networks and deliver affordable services to under-connected communities. Every technology leader should now be asking themselves if there’s anything more that they can do to help level-up connectivity across the nation.”
Todd Schlekeway, president and CEO of the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE), said that as funding begins to flow to the states, his organization was “committed to educating federal and state government stakeholders that closing the ‘digital divide’ is only truly achievable if all technology-related deployment options qualify for BEAD funds. This approach capitalizes on the wealth of technologies available to Americans, including fiber, wireless, and fixed wireless applications.” NATE will also be keeping track of workforce-specific funding opportunities, because having enough people (and materials) to do the work of deployment is another hurdle that will have to be dealt with.
Ultimately, will the BEAD funding—in conjunction with all the other pandemic-related broadband funding that has been made available—be enough to close the digital divide and actually get high-speed broadband to every American?
The general consensus seems to be that great strides can and will be made with this funding—but it will probably not get the country all the way to the stated goal of 100% connectivity. The Biden administration had originally proposed spending $100 billion on ensuring high-speed, affordable broadband access for all Americans, but the figure was trimmed down as part of negotiations to pass the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, ending up at $65 billion total—with $42.5 billion dedicated to the BEAD program. The Brookings Institute has noted that the figure Congress passed was based in part on a 2018 estimate of an $80 billion price tag from the Federal Communications Commission—pre-pandemic, and before the supply chain crunch and inflationary period that has followed. But that estimate was also based on old and inaccurate estimates of how many Americans didn’t have sufficient broadband service or access; the FCC and NTIA have since put significant effort into improving such data and basing new funding opportunities on the updated maps. On the plus side, the Infrastructure Act’s focus on affordability in addition to pure access “will likely bring internet to significantly more Americans than could building out networks to rural areas alone,” Brookings has said.
However, researchers from Tufts University have estimated that it would actually take something on the order of $240 billion to close the digital divide in the U.S. — more than 3.5 times the $65 billion that Congress agreed to invest in broadband. Those researchers urged state-level stakeholders to “pay close attention to where funding is going, and look not only at number of locations, but number of people served” if they are to meet the goal to get high-speed internet to as many people as possible. They also pointed out that BEAD money will, by the nature of the program and its stated priorities, favor funding service deployment to unserved, primarily rural areas, and that states and cities should look to fill in urban and suburban gaps in performance via other federal funding pools, as well as make sure that they are challenging inaccurate data in service maps.
“Finances are not infinite,” says Carl Guardino, VP of government affairs and policy for wireless broadband equipment provider Tarana Wireless, which is currently active in ISP networks in 41 states and 19 countries. “We still will not have enough money—let alone enough time, with a 2030 deadline—if we think we can do [the build out] solely with one technology, of fiber.” He sees a place not only for fiber and fixed wireless access, but also for satellite providers—particularly LEO-based providers like Starlink, which can provide much faster service speeds than traditional satellite-based internet.
Tarana has offered up its own analysis of what a 100%-fiber-based national broadband service would look like, based on data from real-world fiber deployment metrics from 132 digital divide projects in Alabama, California, Michigan, Nebraska, and Virginia between 2019 and 2022. Those projects were chosen as a basis for analysis because they “represent the full range of the challenges US geography presents” and would provide a “well-grounded model for the costs of fiber deployment.”
“The projects served 52.7k homes across 3,240 square miles at an eye-watering average cost of $13.9k per home,” Tarana concluded in its analysis of the projects, adding that based on extrapolation from those real-world figures, a fiber-only approach would cost over $200 billion to serve 16 million families identified as unserved or underserved by the Federal Communications Commission at the time (and it should be noted that the underserved/unserved number continues to shift: The latest iteration of the FCC’s new and improved national broadband map added a net 1 million locations based on updated data). “While broadband service over fiber is ideal, it’s important to acknowledge there are situations where it is neither practical nor reasonable, due to high deployment costs and unacceptably long timelines to service,” the company said.
“If we really care about equity, we have to realize, it’s not a one-tool-fits-all [situation],” Guardino said. “We’ll run out of time and we’ll run out of money long before we run out of American families on the wrong side of the digital divide. So then it’s, what do we do about that? And what we do is, we keep high standards and we meet and exceed those standards, and use the right tool in the toolkit for the community and the family that are depending on us to do so. Otherwise, we not only lose a great opportunity to solve one of the biggest challenges that families face … but we’re going to lose people’s trust, and that is hard to ever get back.”
