With BEAD in flux, states lead on broadband expansion

As the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program remains in flux — especially amid questions over how states can use $21 billion in unspent “nondeployment” funds — states have spent the past year stepping up funding and policymaking to expand broadband access.

That finding was shared in a report published this month by The Pew Charitable Trusts that evaluated the role of state broadband policy over the past year. It pointed out that while there have been massive federal investments in broadband expansion, like BEAD, the expiration of subsidy programs, like the Federal Communication Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program, and a bevy of unanswered questions about the longevity of the federal government’s support for expanding internet access have pushed some state legislators to tackle the issues more locally. The report also points out that some of them have been left untouched by federal dollars.

The report found that states last year passed more than 160 broadband bills. Twenty-six states allocated a combined $1.3 billion for broadband projects. Jake Varn, associate manager with Pew’s broadband access initiative and author of the report, said these bills can provide insight into how state legislatures might manage connectivity challenges into 2026 and beyond.

Exactly how states will address broadband depends on changes made under the second presidency of Donald Trump. Shortly after his appointment to the role early last year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced he would “revamp” BEAD. Last summer, his department shared new program rules forcing states to redo their proposals, and Lutnick promised to deliver rules for how states could use their nondeployment BEAD funds. Last May, Trump announced he was cancelling the Digital Equity Act — $2.75 billion in funding for states to create programs intended to close the digital divide. This month — more than nine months after the new rules were announced — the National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced it would delay the release of that guidance.

Varn said state broadband legislation can be placed in a couple categories. The first, he said, are regulatory actions states have taken to address network deployment barriers, such as improving state and local permitting processes or addressing other non-policy constraints, like workforce shortages, that can slow or halt deployment.

“I know that there was a big permitting bill in Indiana, for example, that really tried to address poll attachment issues, and following reports out of the [legislative] committee, it seemed to be a really substantive process of figuring out where the challenges were between poll attachers and poll owners and trying to create a system at the state level that addressed the barriers that were arising similarly in this bill,” Varn said.

The second category, Varn said, which makes up the bulk of the state legislation, are to create new grant or subsidy programs to stand in for cancelled federal funding. New Mexico recently created a subsidy program that will be funded by a new surcharge applied to telecommunications bills. State lawmakers said it will serve as a unique replacement to the state’s absent ACP funds. 

Some states have also taken to funding broadband directly, building out middle-mile networks or line extensions.

“A number of states, have deployed line-extension programs,” Varn said. “So, there may already be a network that exists in a community, but individual households are not able to afford connecting to it because they may have a long driveway or just can’t afford that hook up costs. And so there are a number of states that have put together programs to try to fix that issue, where they may show up on the map as served or able to be served, but the reality of that household is that they do not have an internet connection, and they cannot afford to get one, despite what the reporting would otherwise say.”

Varn said it was “not surprising” that states have grabbed the baton, since state legislators and state broadband offices are likely hearing from their constituents about some of these issues, but also attempting to get ahead of bureaucratic issues before they receive large BEAD payouts. States are working to expand the authority of their broadband offices. Varn said this can be explained by the integral work they do implementing programs like BEAD, but also complementing them with separate state efforts.

Varn said procedural barriers for states might include “things like workforce development or permitting barriers, which we saw last year that states were already putting money towards new apprenticeship programs or trying to address some duplicative permitting processes, or where people need to go back to get access to the same right of way that they already have access to, or just setting clear shot clocks and standards for how these projects can be deployed.”