On January 2, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued its final guidance on the use of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funds for low earth orbit (LEO) satellite technologies. The NTIA released the final Alternative Broadband Technology Policy Notice, which it says “gives states and territories additional flexibility and simplified processes for determining where Alternative Technologies can be funded, all while ensuring that states and territories may select the most robust technology for each BEAD funded location, including those locations in the most remote and difficult-to-reach areas.”
The January 2 policy notice follows draft guidance the NTIA issued on August 26, 2024, addressing the use of “Alternative Broadband Technology” under BEAD. In response to that guidance, the NTIA received more than 100 comments from state broadband officers, network providers, industry associations, manufacturers, and consumers. Some of those comments proposed modifications and clarifications to the initial guidance.
“Many commenters urged NTIA to continue its focus on fiber-to-the-home deployments,” the NTIA said, adding that it “reiterates through this Public Notice the importance of these Priority Broadband Projects, which the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law required NTIA to define. NTIA has long recognized, however, that the cost of deployment for some locations may require the use of Alternative Technologies. This Public Notice will help ensure that BEAD funding is directed to those areas that most need it and ensure that states and territories may select the best available technology to deploy to be deployed to each location.”
The NTIA further stated that it has “taken steps to significantly reduce barriers to participation by LEO satellite providers.” Its policy notice gives states the flexibility to reimburse LEO providers based upon either subscriber milestones or the number of locations in a project area.
In the “Background and Purpose” section of the final guidance policy note, the NTIA reiterates the priority levels of different technologies, placing alternative technologies including LEO at the lowest priority. It states, “The principal purpose of the BEAD Program is to deploy broadband service to all unserved and underserved locations. To achieve this goal, Eligible Entities may fund a variety of technologies that satisfy the BEAD Program’s minimum technical requirements. The BEAD NOFO [Notice of Funding Opportunity] establishes a clear hierarchy of technologies that Eligible Entities must apply when awarding subgrants for Unserved and Underserved Service Projects: (1) Priority Broadband Projects (end-to-end fiber); (2) other Reliable Broadband Service (RBS) projects; and finally (3) Alternative Technology projects (where no subgrant applicants have proposed offering RBS at or below the Extremely High Cost Per Location Threshold and the use of Alternative Technology would be less expensive than an RBS project).
The BEAD program has come under scrutiny in the political arena. As we previously reported, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who now chairs the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, wrote a letter to NTIA administrator Alan Davidson in November. In the letter, Cruz stated “Congress will review the BEAD program” in early 2025, “with specific attention to NTIA’s extreme technology bias in defining ‘priority broadband projects’ and ‘reliable broadband service.’”
While this document recently released by the NTIA is referred to as “final guidance,” the final word on BEAD technologies may not yet have been spoken.
We will continue to follow the administration of BEAD across the United States.
