States review satellite BEAD locations after new broadband data changed eligibility

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has told several state broadband offices that some locations previously approved for satellite internet projects through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program must be reviewed. Approval will be revoked, the agency said, if states can’t refute updated FCC data showing the locations are no longer eligible for federal funding.

The request arrives after the Federal Communications Commission recently updated its Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, the standardized, nationwide list of exact locations mapped for broadband funding. The NTIA claimed to have newly identified some locations in state proposals as ineligible after comparing the data to states’ approved low-Earth orbit satellite technology projects and the FCC’s National Broadband Map, which was updated on July 1.

A report released Thursday by the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School estimates that if states remove all locations identified as newly served, about 35% of the locations awarded BEAD funding for satellite service would no longer qualify. That would remove almost 312,000 locations from LEO satellite projects, and reduce BEAD expenditures on these types of projects by an estimated $354 million, the report claims.

The policy reversal comes after critiques of the Trump administration’s concerted efforts to instate BEAD program changes that make more broadband money available to satellite companies, including those owned by the president’s allies, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink. Rep. Doris Matsui, a Democrat from California, recently referred to the situation as “suspicious.”

Review process

According to several state broadband offices contacted by this publication, the NTIA recently emailed them a list of broadband and LEO satellite projects that had previously been approved for BEAD funding but were no longer. The NTIA is not automatically removing the locations from approval, but asking states to review their eligibility. If states can prove that flagged locations are still in the FCC’s list of approved locations or actually aren’t already served by an internet provider, then states will be allowed to keep those locations on their BEAD-funded project lists.

If states determine that the NTIA was right in finding that the locations are already served or aren’t serviceable at all, then states will have to remove those locations from their project funding lists, and provide cause for the removal in a new report to be sent to the agency called a post-award change request.

The NTIA has said that two reasons for removal are acceptable, with the first being that the location no longer exists in the FCC’s fabric. This could be caused by an error, such as that a given structure never actually existed. It might have been merged into another location, been determined not to be broadband serviceable or was just removed from the fabric. The second acceptable reason for removal, if the location still exists in the fabric, is that the location now has access to qualifying non-subsidized broadband service.

‘Double and triple and quadruple check’

Not every state has received the notice. Tennessee’s broadband program director said Monday she hadn’t received it. But broadband officials in Colorado and Louisiana confirmed they had received the request, as did a third state that asked to remain anonymous.

Brandy Reitter, the executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office, said her office is working to verify the locations and plans to remove the requested locations after verification. She added that the list provided by NTIA would remove approximately 33% of the state’s awarded LEO locations from funding.

Veneeth Iyengar, Louisiana’s top broadband official, said his office, the Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity, is reviewing how NTIA’s request will affect its awards to SpaceX, the parent company of LEO satellite provider Starlink, which include more than 10,000 BEAD locations.

“We’re going to double and triple and quadruple check that if we are to remove locations, that we are very careful about making sure we’re doing it because the last thing I frankly want is a location removed, and then I hear from that constituent six months later saying, Where’s my internet? That is a — from my perspective — a disastrous outcome,” Iyengar said in an interview.

Ivengar said he thinks the NTIA will eventually send the request to every state that had LEO satellite as part of its mix of BEAD-awarded projects. He added that while this policy change will require his office to conduct another review of the broadband serviceable locations in the state, it’s important for broadband offices to stay flexible as things change, new networks are built and new expectations are handed down. This flexibility has helped his office narrow the digital divide, he said.

“We have locations being built all over the state. People are actually getting service. The number of phone calls I get from constituents saying, I don’t have service, is decreasing. Years ago, I would go to a meeting, and there’d be hundreds of people complaining about internet. Now, if I go to that same meeting, I might get less than five people come to an event,” Ivengar said. “If the NTIA says, do something, then we’ll figure out what’s the best way to address whatever they would like, while at the same time ensuring and protecting the investments that are going to be made in Louisiana.”

‘Suspicious’

The agency’s request to reduce awards to LEO satellite companies appears to come contrary to its goals to make more BEAD money available for satellite. Both the NTIA’s administrator, Arielle Roth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have worked in the last year to expand opportunities for LEO satellite companies to receive BEAD funds. (NTIA did not respond to a request to comment on this story.)

Just a few months after assuming leadership over Commerce, Lutnick “revamped” the $42.45 billion program. He issued new guidance last year, following critiques of the program’s regulations, namely its original preference for fiber projects. Instead, he pushed for a technology-neutral strategy, opening more pathways for states to spend BEAD funds on technologies like LEO and fixed wireless.

In her testimony during a June 30 House oversight hearing, Roth reiterated the agency’s favorable view of LEO satellite as one of several technologies that should compete equally for BEAD funding. She attributed its inclusion in BEAD to delivering program cost savings and speeding up the program. House Democrats during the hearing, however, pointed out that Lutnick’s changes have in some cases further delayed the program.

The program changes have also driven political critiques, as they have opened the door for more government money to be directed to SpaceX, the parent company of LEO satellite provider Starlink, which is owned by Elon Musk. From the start of Musk’s appointment as a special government employee of Donald Trump’s administration, and as head of its controversial Department of Government Efficiency unit, questions of ethics and influence have surrounded his connection to the White House, before his dramatic falling out with the president last summer.

The announcement of the technology-neutral restructuring drew criticism from lawmakers as well, including Matsui, the California Democrat, who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is a ranking member of the its Communications and Technology Subcommittee.

“Forgive me if I’m suspicious of the Trump administration’s focus on freezing BEAD in the name of bringing in so-called technology-neutral rules,” she said at a conference in Washington, D.C., last year, The Verge reported.

Musk’s company has received millions of dollars in BEAD awards, from several states, and has since asked for special exemptions from certain BEAD program requirements during grant negotiations.