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Tech Diversity Key To Saving Imperiled Federal Broadband Program: ReportBy John P. Mello Jr.January 22, 2025 5:00 AM PT ADVERTISEMENTQuality Leads That Turn Into DealsFull-service marketing programs from TechNewsWorld deliver sales-ready leads. Segment by geography, industry, company size, job title, and more. Get Started Now. An emphasis on fiber optic broadband delivery blunts the effectiveness and reach of a federal program created to close the gap between internet haves and have-nots, according to a report released Tuesday by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF).The Washington, D.C. tech think tank maintained that the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is financially imperiled by a preference for deployment projects using fiber-optic cables.It called on the Trump administration to reform BEAD to stop favoring overly expensive fiber when low-Earth-orbiting (LEO) satellites could do the same job for less.Taking a technology-neutral approach to broadband deployment would save money that could be better spent on other causes of the digital divide, it argued in its 11-page report.We think tech neutrality would have made sense from the beginning, but certainly in the years since the law was initially adopted, a lot of satellites have been launched, and there have been a lot of fixed wireless deployments, said ITIF Director of Spectrum and Broadband Policy Joe Kane.We dont really need to be putting fiber everywhere if there are viable satellite and fixed wireless options, he told TechNewsWorld.Tech Overruns GuidanceThe legislation creating BEAD was passed three years ago and funded to the tune of US$42.45 billion. The program aimed to help communities overcome the barrier of high front-end broadband deployment costs and get high-speed internet service to every American who wanted it.[I]t has become clear that technological advancements have outrun the programs regulatory guidelines, Kane and Research Assistant Ellis Scherer wrote in the report. The main issue is that BEAD is not technology neutral, they continued. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has designed the program to give it a strong preference for using expensive fiber-optic cables. The result is that the money funds more expensive infrastructure than is needed, which will ultimately limit BEADs impact in bridging the digital divide.The NTIA declined to comment for this story.According to the report, states could save tens of millions of dollars on their deployment efforts if BEAD could better incorporate cheaper yet still high-performing technologies such as fixed wireless broadband, such as 5G internet, and satellite service. Those savings could then be used to address the other principal causes of the digital divide, including affordability for low-income households and digital literacy, it added.The change in administrations can be a good inflection point to take stock of where we are now, Kane said. The satellite ecosystem is a lot different than it was when President Biden took office. The same can be said for the fixed wireless ecosystem.Underfunded From the StartJim Dunstan, general counsel for TechFreedom, a technology advocacy group in Washington, D.C., maintained that BEAD has been underfunded since its inception. $42.5 billion isnt going to get broadband to everybody no matter what technology you use, he told TechNewsWorld.He added that inflation has increased dramatically since the passage of the BEAD legislation. That makes closing the digital divide with $42.5 billion even less likely, he said.Nevertheless, he acknowledged, I think the NTIA really missed the ball on this by giving a nod to fiber. While fiber is expensive, it has advantages, besides performance, over satellite technologies, countered Ry Marcattilio, associate director for research at the Community Broadband Networks Initiative of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit organization and advocacy group that provides technical assistance to communities about local solutions for sustainable community development, with offices in Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine, and Minneapolis.Fiber is certainly more expensive to build, but it solves the problem for a geometrically longer time horizon than LEO satellite services, he told TechNewsWorld. Those satellites have to be replaced every five years.This argument that we should build broadband infrastructure in a technology-neutral way I think is a recipe for having to spend thousands of dollars every five years on the same household over and over and over again, instead of running fiber to the vast majority of them and solving the problem once for three or four generations in a row, he said.Niche Solution?Marcattilio contended that satellite internet is a good niche solution for a small number of very rural households. It works well as a niche solution if you dont care about shifting the burden of startup and monthly costs onto households.LEO service will work well for a small number of households, and this has been true since its inception, he added. I think it will be true for a while, but its never going to be a mass market solution the way we all might wish it were.If we handed the $42.5 billion to the satellite providers, you could deliver broadband to 100% of Americans pretty easily, Dunstan contended. The problem is, what kind of service can you squeeze out of those satellites? He explained that satellite networks claim they can support 100 Mbps downloads and 20 Mbps uploads. The problem is when you start adding people to the service, he said. Youre sharing bandwidth. At some point, even with 6,000 satellites up there, its going to be hard to maintain that speed.Kane conceded congestion could be a problem for satellite networks, but its less of a concern for BEAD users. BEAD is targeting people in rural and remote locations, places where broadband has never been deployed before, he explained.In those places, theres not going to be thousands of people signing up at once, he continued. Were talking about areas where there arent thousands of people at all.Fouled in PoliticsJohn Strand of Strand Consulting, an advisory firm focusing on global telecom based in Denmark, argued that the NTIA should not have been charged with administering the program. It was political from the start, he told TechNewsWorld. The FCC should have had responsibility. It has experience in subsidy distribution and provides bipartisan accountability.He contended that BEAD was supposed to be tech-neutral, but the NTIA put its thumb on the scale in favor of fiber solutions. This is because fiber builds typically require more labor. Hence, unions get involved, a Democratic Party constituency, he said.Fiber networks also lend themselves to delivering increasing amounts of video entertainment traffic and advertising from the Big Tech and Hollywood platforms, helpful to another traditional Dem constituency, he added.He also noted that BEAD had climate and DEI requirements, which were not welcome in red states. The NTIA put requirements on the money which Congress did not require, he added. This made the program take longer to administer.Wireless technologies are, in general, more economical, but no one network type is always the right solution for every situation, he explained. Networks are a blend of technologies.I expect Arielle Roth will be named the head of NTIA and predict she will either kill BEAD or remake it into something practical, not political, or aspirational, he observed.John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.Leave a CommentClick here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account.Related StoriesMore by John P. Mello Jr.view allMore in Internet
