States Face Mounting Pressure on BEAD With Data Gaps, Mapping Concerns

Program revisions and funding being awarded to low earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers in hard-to-serve areas are likely to cause challenges down the road, some speakers warned, calling on federal agencies to release more data behind BEAD decisions.

"It's amazing what states have done," said CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson, but it's likely that there will be millions of locations that were missed by the BEAD program "because of fabric problems." Some states "push[ed] the envelope" in their BEAD resubmissions, but others "completely gave in to the NTIA rules without question."

Dawson noted that he worked with one company in Kentucky that "had a miserable time with the fabric" because it believed that about 30% of eligible locations were missed in just one county. There's bad GIS data at the county level in West Virginia, too, Dawson added, so mapping relied on satellite images there and throughout the Appalachia region. Other states weren't as bad, he said: "It just matters where you're looking."

State broadband offices have spent the past several months scrambling to meet NTIA's requirements for BEAD, said Ookla Vice President of Government Affairs Bryan Darr. Dawson added that one key reason for that is staffing limitations. "Some states hired really amazing folks," while others hired consultants who, in some cases, were working with up to 20 states at once, he said, which "diluted their talent." Dawson also noted that some states were required to start from scratch because there wasn't a state broadband office.

Now states "need to be even more concerned" about ensuring that their subgrantees follow through on delivering and maintaining the technologies they received funding to deploy, Darr said. Reid Consulting Group President Tom Reid agreed: "Accountability is a key issue."

Part of the problem is that states have been "overwhelmed" with the amount of data they have to manage, Darr said. It's going to be "extraordinarily important" for them to track progress, given the amount of funding at play. He encouraged ISPs to use Ookla's Speedtest to help states verify that networks are built with the capacity to serve residents over the long term.

Dawson also said there's "a whole lot of mystery still going on" with the FCC's national broadband map's broadband serviceable location (BSL) fabric, given the complex process required for state or local governments to challenge the underlying data. Reid called the process a "trust but never verify" system based on ISPs' claims in the FCC's broadband data collection.

There's been an "erosion in eligibility" over time, Reid said, adding that 40%-60% of households will be passed over during the BEAD program as a result. Some BEAD-eligible areas to be served by LEO satellites or wireless services will also be challenging due to limitations posed by canopy absorption and terrain shadows, he said.

Yet "that didn't stop the awards from happening," Reid said. He noted that some LEO satellite providers won subgrants for locations within a national forest in Monroe County, Ohio. "LEO is not going to happen in those areas," he warned.

However, it's more critical now that federal agencies disclose the underlying data being used to administer the BEAD process, said Broadband Toolkit founder J. Randolph Luening. That includes BSLs, ISP deployments, state data collection processes and the apparent price caps for projects deemed by NTIA to be excessively costly, he said.

The other missing piece is the number of unserved and underserved locations that dropped during BEAD's "Benefit of the Bargain" round, Luening said. "At this point, the public doesn't really know what's happening."

One solution is Ookla's crowdsourced speed data, Reid said. It's a "tremendous" tool that should be used to determine and track the progress of broadband availability, he said, citing a state-funded project that Chariton Valley Communications won in Missouri with Ookla's data. The online dashboard showed the percentage completed and monitored progress on the remaining areas of focus.

Reid also emphasized the need for sustained consumer advocacy, noting that ISPs have "armies of lobbyists" to dispute challenges to the data and could contribute to millions of rural households remaining unserved or underserved post-BEAD. "It's a bipartisan betrayal of rural America."

Ultimately, what's happening is a "race to the bottom," similar to the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, Reid said. Making price the top factor for awarding funds "took a lot of authority away from the broadband offices" about which providers are most likely to deliver on their proposed projects, he said: "I think we're going to have defaults in BEAD just like we had in RDOF" due to the Benefit of the Bargain round.

WISPA Mostly Pleased

WISPA CEO David Zumwalt, meanwhile, said that the BEAD program now appears to be headed in the right direction after a slow start. During a webcast that the group posted Tuesday, he said it was “always preposterous” on some levels to suggest that approaches that work in urban markets would necessarily find success in hard-to-serve markets. With changes to the program over the summer, the providers “who have been there, done that, who have been active in their hometown solutions, are now at the table.” The changes should have come sooner, he said.

Zumwalt offered a positive take on the Trump administration's BEAD changes, including a requirement that the states take a second look at how they spend funds. Others have been more negative, including NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, who recently said that as the program moves in different directions, her members are increasingly likely not to participate (see 2509220057).

One of the initial problems with BEAD is that it “tended to ignore” the providers already offering service in local communities, Zumwalt said. “Hometown ISPs deserve a lot of credit for going in with their own private capital and solving problems … in communities that were formerly part of the digital divide.”

The revised rules protect providers from “overbuilding” in a community, Zumwalt said. The fact “that taxpayer-funded overbuilding could occur and would eviscerate private investment was a real problem for WISPA.” The original NTIA rules would have meant building fiber in markets “where there was never any prospect for a return on investment,” he said. Tumult in the BEAD program “has been really tough on state broadband offices,” but “it has been tougher” on the ISPs participating, “trying to work through the various iterations,” Zumwalt added. “All of that has certainly not been without friction,” but WISPA members “are in the hunt” for BEAD dollars.