So You Want BEAD to Be Tech Neutral?

America’s $42.5 billion investment in universal broadband internet access may be on track for a major overhaul. Three years into its meticulous planning and implementation process, and with significant progress already made, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program may pivot from prioritizing fiber to satellite connectivity. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is reportedly heeding Republican clarion calls for “tech neutrality” and planning to encourage states to seek the “lowest cost” option when awarding contracts under the federal government’s Internet for All program. This would reverse the Biden administration’s “fiber first” policy and likely redirect billions in funding from fiber builds to the satellite internet service sold by Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

But what does “tech neutrality” actually mean for BEAD and its goal of universal broadband?

Conversations about tech neutrality largely center around the inclusion of two technologies that generally offer lower quality service than fiber home internet provides: fixed wireless broadband and, increasingly, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service. Proponents want these technologies, which typically cost less to deploy, to play a significant role in broadband coverage rather than being sidelined in favor of the “gold standard” fiber.

A good faith interpretation of tech neutrality, then, treats all technologies as potentially viable in a national deployment strategy, with the understanding that different circumstances will lend themselves to the use of different technologies. A more concerning interpretation treats all technologies as interchangeable—that is, it compares them on the basis of deployment cost alone. And Secretary Lutnick’s insistence on finding the “lowest cost” deployment option in every scenario is a worrisome harbinger of the latter.

Choosing between funding fiber and LEO satellite connectivity is really about making tradeoffs. The primary advantage of satellite is that it’s much cheaper and faster to deploy, which has real benefits in a country where the cost of laying wires to connect households in remote areas can creep into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indeed, with the satellites already launched, LEO satellite “deployment” can be achieved by simply mailing a terminal to the household in need. Under BEAD’s current construct—and according to the infrastructure law that funds it—every dollar saved on deployments to unserved households can be used to connect others, to connect anchor institutions like libraries, or to fund adoption and digital upskilling initiatives. This gives states good reason to be economical with their BEAD funds.

But maximizing the utility of these funds means comparing more than upfront deployment costs. Like rural electrification in the 1930s, BEAD is a generational investment in a technology that is essential to modern life. In the long run, it’s unclear how much money we would actually save by relying on satellite service in lieu of fiber—or if we would even save at all. A fiber connection has far more capacity and a useful life of several dozen years, while a LEO satellite’s lifespan is closer to five. Investing in fiber where it’s feasible might save replacement costs down the line.

Moreover, access to high-speed LEO broadband is not as ubiquitous as it might seem. There are well-documented waiting lists for Starlink across the country. Since satellites share capacity among users over fairly large geographic areas, too many BEAD-eligible households in close proximity might exceed what the connection can handle. Though Starlink has plans to increase capacity, states need certainty that their plans to connect households will be viable long-term solutions.

Service quality is another significant tradeoff. Fiber is the fastest broadband technology there is, and Starlink only intermittently meets minimum broadband speeds of 100/20 Mbps. While the capacity it provides is enough to meet the average modern household’s daily needs, the capacity fiber provides is more likely to be sufficient in the future as consumer bandwidth needs increase. Satellite service is also less reliable than fixed broadband—both because capacity constraints can lead to drops in quality during times of heavy use and because satellite connections are vulnerable to disruptions to the technology’s line of sight, such as heavy rainfall. While LEO systems are more reliable than cable connections, fiber outperforms them both.

Consumer cost is another hurdle for a program predicated on creating affordable broadband. The upfront price of a satellite terminal ranges from $300 to $500, with regional differences based on capacity. Consumers facing the $120 monthly fee for residential Starlink service pay far more than the national average for a broadband subscription—and those in densely populated areas must pay a one-time $100 congestion charge as well. While Starlink offers discounts in areas with excess capacity, a sudden influx of customers could make capacity shortages worse.

Broadband subsidy programs aren’t designed to accommodate satellite’s cost structure, so consumers paying those high prices are left to cover the costs themselves. Even Starlink’s new “Residential Lite” option—which offers $80 monthly service in return for slower speeds and even less reliability—exceeds average monthly broadband costs. States tasked with bringing their populations online need to consider the affordability of the networks they fund, or they’ll invest in broadband that fewer residents can use.

All of this means that LEO satellite service, while a valuable player in closing the digital divide, is more appropriate in some contexts than others. While fiber offers higher-quality service that’s more able to scale (qualities that Congress directly instructed the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to prioritize in BEAD), satellite offers adequate, but pricier, connectivity in places where other technologies are too difficult or too expensive to deploy—and it does so more quickly and with a lower upfront cost. Neither is always the best solution.

BEAD was designed to balance these kinds of considerations by enabling states to make judgments based on their geographies and their populations’ needs. This flexibility has led to a variety of approaches to using satellite service. Maine, for example, is distributing Starlink terminals to unserved households to get them immediately connected, but the state is leaving these same locations eligible for fiber deployment later on if sufficient funding remains. Nevada is using funding from other broadband deployment programs to supplement its BEAD proposal and ensure high-speed broadband reaches every resident of the state.

Under BEAD’s current rules, states can prioritize end-to-end fiber, or they can spend less on deployment to reserve money for non-deployment initiatives, such as digital upskilling, instead. Starlink might be tapped as a first-line means of deployment to households that are otherwise too difficult to reach. It might also have a role to play as an emergency relief service, as it did in the wake of Hurricane Helene. There are many circumstances under which some level of reliance on satellite service makes sense.

Crucially, BEAD gave states and territories discretion to make the decisions that were best for them at the local level, where the context for those decisions can be fully understood. And at this local level, the type of technology deployed is not a partisan issue. It’s a product of constituent needs and geographic reality.

A constructive interpretation of “tech neutrality” enables true progress toward closing the digital divide by encouraging states to take a holistic approach to their connectivity landscapes. It encourages them to serve all households in need—including the underserved and community anchor institutions—rather than prioritizing fiber coverage for a few. By maintaining states’ ability to spend funds on both deployment and adoption initiatives, it provides a natural incentive for states to be judicious with their broadband deployment expenses.

This kind of approach is made possible by leaving all technologies on the table—for example, by ensuring that satellite service is held to reasonable technical standards (such as reserving the capacity necessary to ensure adequate service for every user) and nothing more. But this is already largely the case. NTIA’s current alternative technology guidance doesn’t preclude any technology from participation in BEAD. To the extent the program rules explicitly push for fiber, they do so for the reasons laid out above: it’s better and more scalable. Yet the range of approaches taken by various states shows that, in practice, participants have avenues to deploy technologies as they see fit. If NTIA removes BEAD’s fiber prioritization, and if the added flexibility leads some states to expand their satellite service, that shouldn’t do any real harm.

But there are more heavy-handed “tech-neutral” tactics NTIA could take that would directly encumber the program’s success. Under BEAD’s current rules, states can choose to connect households using satellite or fixed wireless technology in locations where the cost of fiber deployment exceeds an “extremely high-cost threshold” (EHCT) set by the state. Theoretically, if NTIA were determined to maximize satellite use at all costs, it could set a low nationwide cap on the per-location cost of fiber deployments, which would force a lower-cost solution for a large share of unserved households. It could even mandate that a certain percentage of overall BEAD funds be spent on satellite service with blithe disregard for the diverse needs of states.

Reshaping BEAD’s priorities to this degree would ignore the variability in deployment needs and costs across the country and only increase the likelihood that communities are forced into communications solutions that are wrong for them. It would represent NTIA abandoning BEAD’s current holistic approach to the digital divide—one that balances deployment and adoption needs and encourages local decision-making—in favor of piecemeal comparisons on the basis of deployment cost alone. And it would impose dramatic changes on the program late in the game, even as states plead to continue the progress they’ve made so far.

If states were forced to rely on satellite broadband beyond what makes sense and prohibited from structuring the subsidy to reduce consumer monthly fees, rural households—which make up an overwhelming proportion of BEAD service recipients—would be put in a particularly untenable position. At that point, the areas most in need of connectivity would find themselves paying outsized fees for lower-quality service in areas where BEAD could have funded higher-quality service for less.

Implementing BEAD in a way that best serves the public interest requires a careful and unabating balancing of priorities. LEO satellite systems—and all broadband technologies—have an important role to play, and states should be given the flexibility to use them. But crafting good policy means weighing tradeoffs, honestly assessing the technologies’ relative strengths and limitations, and leaving room for states to arbitrate use of their broadband funds. True tech neutrality means engaging on the merits of the technologies, not making judgments on the basis of deployment costs alone. The latter is a path to short-changing the future of connectivity for everyone—and for rural America most of all.

BEAD should use all technologies, but not all technologies are equal. If NTIA starts treating them like they are, it won’t really be practicing tech neutrality at all.