D.C. Memo: BEAD Just Lost a Big Player in Charter

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BEAD: Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey has been saying for months he had issues with the Biden administration's $42.45 billion BEAD program to fund rural broadband projects. On Friday, CFO Jessica Fischer made it official. "We now expect our total BEAD spend will be substantially less than our spend in RDOF, in each case net of subsidies. That lower outlook reflects the most recent broadband map updates in terms of available, unserved passings near our network, and the less favorable rules framework in BEAD when compared to RDOF and state grants,” she said. Charter's decision came about a week after BEAD Administrator Alan Davidson suggested RDOF was "implemented in a hurry at the end of the last administration by an FCC that did not take the time to build good maps." BEAD, he said, would not repeat those errors. Charter's minimalist approach to BEAD could leave a big gap in the program because, as Fischer said, "we are generally the largest rural builder in our states through RDOF, ARPA and other grants." Charter won about $1 billion in the FCC's RDOF reverse auction. In 2024 alone, Charter has spent about $1.5 billion to connect RDOF-supported locations. Charter lost 110,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter but 200,000 were ACP-related. "Were it not for the impact of the end of the ACP program in June, we would have grown our Internet customers in the third quarter," Winfrey said. "We remain confident in our ability to return to healthy, long-term growth."