In June, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released an updated Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, a broadband deployment subsidy created in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Jeffrey Westling discusses the updates and changes to the program, many of which eliminate or reform conditions imposed by the Biden Administration that went beyond the program’s statutory requirements.

Key points:

• The NTIA released an updated NOFO for the BEAD program – which provides $42.5 billion to states to connect unserved Americans – largely eliminating regulatory burdens that could inhibit participation in the program.
• Specifically, the updated NOFO eliminates a variety of labor, climate change, network neutrality, stakeholder engagement, and affordability requirements, and would require states to adopt technology-neutral rubrics for weighing different deployment options.
• Many of the changes incentivize the deployment of broadband at the lowest cost, but NTIA should also be careful to implement these changes in a manner that does not force states to wholly reset their processes, adding delays to deployment.

Read the analysis.