US states have continued to outline their proposed BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) funding allocations over the last couple of weeks, with Colorado handing a huge boost to satellite providers.
So far, states have favored fiber over LEO satellite alternatives, including Virginia and Louisiana earlier this month, while 99 percent of West Virginia’s funding will be awarded to fiber providers, which is set to cover 94 percent of the state’s 73,701 eligible locations.
BEAD, which was set up by the Biden administration and confirmed by Congress in November 2021, has been implemented by the NTIA. The federal grant program was designed to fund projects dedicated to providing Internet infrastructure in unserved locations across the US and its territories
The previous Biden Administration had pushed for the program to prioritize fiber over alternative technologies such as satellite Internet.
But after much criticism of the $42.5 billion program, President Trump reworked the program earlier this year.
While fiber has been the main beneficiary across most proposals so far, Colorado has bucked this trend, stating that it plans to award more of its funding to satellite providers than fiber.
“Colorado intends to connect 48 percent of eligible locations via fiber, 50 percent through low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite, and 2 percent using wireless providers,” the state announced last week.
In total, Colorado has allocated $387.6 million as part of its BEAD funding, with satellite providers Amazon Kuiper awarded $25.3m and Elon Musk’s SpaceX $9.1m.
Kuiper has been chosen to cover 42,252 locations, which equates to around 47 percent of all locations, while SpaceX has been given 5,400 locations, which is around 6 percent.
Fiber still leads the way in other states
The state’s allocation of funding does appear to be an anomaly, however, as even more states continued to favor fiber.
Arkansas said that only 16 percent of its $308m will go towards LEO satellites, while that amount is even less in Georgia, which proposes 11 percent of its $309.6m funding is for satellites.
Meanwhile, Maine has allocated just shy of 15 percent of its funding for satellites, and Pennsylvania has allocated 18 percent.
It’s significantly less in Kansas, which proposes to allocate just 3 percent of its $250.6m funding for satellites.
SpaceX previously slammed the allocation in Virginia, where it hoped to secure $60 million in grant money, but is now only on course for around $3m.
“Simply put, Virginia has put its heavy thumb on the scale in favor of expensive, slow-to-build fiber bias over speedy, low-cost, and technology-neutral competition,” the company told the state’s government. “Virginia must immediately revise its final proposal to appropriately consider applications received in line with program rules.”
The state has opted to choose Starlink for just 5,579 of the 133,000 locations slated for subsidized broadband installations.
The NTIA is set to review the proposals before approval.
BEAD has been highly controversial. So far, the program has yet to connect a single household to broadband.
Only three states, Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada, had received approval to get on with their broadband build-out.
Musk himself has previously called BEAD an “outrageous waste of taxpayer money.”
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