- The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) wants the US government to take locations off the BEAD map faster if they already have a provider deploying fiber
- NRECA wants to avoid "gamesmanship"
- NTCA — the Rural Broadband Association — thinks it's worth taking a closer look but doesn't want to slow BEAD deployment
We still don’t know for sure when we’ll start seeing shovels in the ground for BEAD. But rural broadband providers aren’t pausing their fiber deployments, and they don’t want to see BEAD bidders moving into the rural providers' territory when the time comes.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), a trade group representing more than 900 rural electric cooperatives, has urged the U.S.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees BEAD, to require states to establish an expedited “true-up” process for BEAD eligible locations before they approve final awards. True-up is the process of reconciling estimated or inaccurate amounts with actual up-to-date figures.
Current broadband maps used to determine BEAD locations are based on a “snapshot in time." But the picture keeps changing, Brian O’Hara, NRECA’s senior director of regulatory affairs and broadband, said.
Rural providers have continued deploying broadband to communities that need it, particularly in the case of providers that are locally owned and controlled, O'Hara said.
“One of our biggest concerns is communities being left behind, because that’s mainly who we serve,” said O’Hara. “If someone says they put fiber there and we can verify that, by all means let’s take it off the map.”
In a letter addressed to NTIA, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said true-ups should be limited to fiber deployments that meet the BEAD definition of a priority network.
According to Matheson, this would “counter any gamesmanship in this process.”
What sort of gamesmanship? A fixed wireless access provider might claim to serve 100/20 Mbps speeds at a range of five miles from a tower, but in fact can only deliver that range 2.5-3 miles from the tower, O’Hara said. “They can say ‘oh yeah no, I updated my transmitter on the tower.’”
Mercury Broadband is one FWA provider that’s been under scrutiny for allegedly overstating its coverage. Companies that have old DSL or coax infrastructure could make a similar claim, O’Hara added, if they say they upgraded their plant and now “automatically” can offer 100/20 Mbps service.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in October announced a new batch of ReConnect grant awards, a total of nearly $173 million to connect rural communities across 10 states. “Those areas should be automatically be taken out as well,” O'Hara said.
Ensuring the list of eligible locations is up to date could take a while. Eligible BEAD locations were determined from the FCC’s national broadband map and state challenge processes. But the FCC updates its map twice a year and uses provider data that’s current as of December 2023.
No state is in the same place with the true-up process, O’Hara said. Some states started it as early as March this year, others are just wrapping up. Meanwhile, NRECA’s rural electric co-op members are continuing to build in certain areas while thinking about whether to apply for BEAD in others. And the application review process will take months.
‘Sanity check’ for BEAD
Mike Romano, EVP at NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, thinks NRECA's suggestion may be worthwhile — as long as it doesn’t slow down the rest of the BEAD timeline.
He’s not sure how an expedited true-up process would play out. However, the idea of a “sanity check for whether additional deployment has occurred is prudent measure.”
Of course, it’s tough to say what will happen with BEAD in light of the election. But perhaps that uncertainty could create time to check if unserved locations are still unserved, Romano said.
The RDOF equation
As the industry waits for the gears to turn on BEAD, the Rural Digital Opprtunity Fund is chugging along. However, there's a problem with RDOF — many RDOF winners default on their obligations, or haven’t made much progress in deployments.
Locations covered by RDOF awards aren’t eligible for BEAD money. As a result, defaulted locations could remain unserved while BEAD funding goes elsewhere.
Perhaps the BEAD process could evolve to incorporate areas impacted by RDOF defaults, Romano said. But he stressed no broadband program is perfect, and that the industry shouldn’t put the brakes on BEAD just to address this issue.
“We’re never going to achieve perfection. We should aim for it but we’re always going to have an issue where we have to figure out how to solve for certain problems,” he said. There may even be instances where providers default under BEAD, for example.
“I just think we don’t necessarily want to stop everything…just for this kind of process alone,” Romano concluded.