Using Dollars & Sense With Internet Access Technologies
The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) established a $42.5 billion federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Internet access grant program.
The aim was to invest in the building new broadband networks in areas that lacked access to adequate infrastructure to deliver high-speed Internet, each state was allocated a portion of that amount primarily based on the number of the “unserved” and “underserved” locations in each state.
The grant program rules prioritized funding the building of fiber networks, the “future proof” gold-standard of Internet access technologies. However, several officials from the Trump Administration have proposed changing BEAD rules to use technologies that appear to cost less to deploy.
These changes would repeat past policy mistakes and waste billions of dollars while delivering subpar Internet access to households at much higher prices. In this fact sheet, we lay out the case for why fiber networks should continue to be prioritized.
BEAD Fiber Fact Sheet