D.C. Memo: Study Says Lutnick's Rules Slashed BEAD Locations by 14%
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BOTB: BEAD program numbers are starting to look really silly. Make that extremely silly. Connecticut – in line to receive $144.1 million in BEAD money under Biden-era rules – has only 885 unserved or underserved locations remaining. That puts the Nutmeg State’s per-location allocation at $163,000. The Connecticut scenario jumped off the page of a new report by the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School. The report’s key takeaway was that since Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s new BEAD rules were announced on June 6, the number of eligible BEAD locations (served and unserved) has declined by 14% based on terms in his new “Benefit of the Bargain” (BOTB) regulations imposed on the states. The U.S. now has 4.2 million eligible BEAD locations, down 65% since December 2022, the ACLP study said. “We believe the number (the decrease) could be even higher, but several states seem intent on keeping their prior non-tech neutral focus, designing impossible hurdles for small providers to demonstrate they are serving,” said Mike Wendy, spokesman for WISPA, a trade group that represents unlicensed fixed wireless (ULFW) operators. ACLP’s findings can be read two ways, according to ACLP Director and study co-author Michael Santorelli. “On the one hand, removing these locations reduces the chances that BEAD will subsidize unnecessary overbuilding. But on the other hand, these changes mean that, in some instances, locations that might have been in line to receive robust and reliable broadband service over fiber or cable under the previous rules might now be deemed served by a lesser quality connection. This is a trade-off inherent in Secretary Lutnick's ‘bargain," he said.
