On June 6, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) issued its long-awaited overhaul of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. This new policy notice repeals many administrative burdens imposed by Biden-era NTIA oversight and aligns the program more closely with Congress’s original intent. This revised guidance promises to enhance broadband deployment by increasing flexibility and reducing costs to taxpayers. But it also risks further delays in a program already criticized for its sluggish rollout—and in the meantime, private enterprise is closing many of the coverage gaps BEAD sought to address.
Perhaps most significantly, the revised guidance embraces a technology-neutral approach to broadband deployment. The statute requires the program to prioritize projects that meet certain performance metrics and that can “easily scale speeds over time” to support “evolving connectivity needs” and deploy 5G and other advanced services. Under President Joe Biden, the NTIA limited these “priority broadband projects” to fiber-optic networks, thus favoring fiber over other broadband solutions. This preference conflicted with the statute’s metrics-based approach and the program’s federalist design, which gave states final funding authority partly because the variety of deployment challenges across states counsels against a one-size-fits-all solution. The new guidance explicitly permits any technology to qualify for priority status if it meets the performance benchmarks and bars states from categorically excluding applicants based on technology alone.
The guidance also removes several regulatory requirements previously imposed by NTIA but not required by the statute. These include preferences for union labor, local hires, wage and benefit standards, workforce diversity, and contracting with small and minority-owned businesses. It also removes climate change compliance obligations and ceases federal micromanagement of business practices such as data caps, interconnection, and other network management practices that went beyond the statute’s requirements. The requirement that states justify favoring traditional broadband providers over municipal or public alternatives is also repealed, ending a procedural hurdle that implicitly favored non-traditional providers.
The requirement that states justify favoring traditional broadband providers over municipal or public alternatives is also repealed, ending a procedural hurdle that implicitly favored non-traditional providers.
Still, critics have rightly questioned the wisdom of altering course midstream. Under President Biden, the BEAD program drew sharp criticism –led by then-FCC Commissioner, now Chairman Brendan Carr—for the slow pace of implementation. The revised guidance rescinds all existing BEAD grants and requires the states to conduct a new round of selection under the new criteria, which only adds another layer of delay. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is optimistic that the program’s funds will be fully distributed by the end of 2025, in part because NTIA is requiring states to complete this supplemental process within 90 days. But as the Benton Foundation notes, states averaged six to nine months to complete the initial round, which casts doubt on this timeline.
In the meantime, private enterprise is making significant progress where BEAD has lagged. A new report by New York Law School’s always-excellent Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute found that the number of unserved or underserved locations—the program’s primary target—has fallen by 59 percent since June 2023, when BEAD funding was allocated to the states. Much of this was achieved by traditional broadband providers, aided by other government buildout subsidies. While this is welcome news, it raises important questions about avoiding overbuilding in areas that no longer meet the statutory requirements, and whether overall funding should be reevaluated in light of this reduced demand.
In sum, the NTIA’s revised guidance marks a meaningful return to the BEAD program’s statutory roots. By emphasizing technological neutrality, curbing regulatory overreach, and empowering states to tailor deployment strategies to local needs, these reforms promise to accelerate broadband rollout and reduce unnecessary taxpayer costs. Yet, by forcing states to restart their application processes, NTIA also risks compounding the very delays it seeks to remedy. As private investment continues to close connectivity gaps independently, the challenge ahead is ensuring BEAD funds are deployed swiftly, strategically, and only where they are still truly needed.
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