- The new BEAD rules have encouraged many more wireless internet service providers to participate
- The new Benefit of the Bargain rules under the Trump administration require that the lowest-cost bidders receive the award
- But the state of Oklahoma has 39 tribes, whose tribal consent supersede the BEAD requirements
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is currently reviewing all the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) proposals from states and territories, and it could, theoretically, reject a lot of them and force states to make changes.
We won’t know for sure until NTIA starts publishing its decisions on all the proposals. But in the meantime, data being collected by Connected Nation shows that 11.7% of BEAD eligible locations have been awarded to fixed wireless access (FWA) providers.
David Zumwalt, president and CEO of WISPA, said, “You know, some states really stuck with their fiber preference. Others opened it up to other technologies. And I'm personally very curious to see what NTIA does with all of that.”
WISPA is a trade organization for FWA providers, but Zumwalt stressed that these operators also deploy a lot of fiber for such things as backhaul and middle mile.
“Over 45% of our members have some significant deployments of fiber,” he said. “So, the question isn't whether it's one technology over another, it's really how do you sensibly roll out technology to meet the needs of your community and afford to do it at the same time?”
Fierce asked if the participation of WISPA members in the BEAD program had increased since the Trump Administration changed the rules in early June as part of its Benefit of the Bargain round.
Zumwalt said participation has definitely increased by FWA providers. Some of that had started in the previous administration, which had opened up BEAD to FWA providers who use not only licensed spectrum but also unlicensed spectrum.
Zumwalt also speculated that many of the FWA providers that participated in the latest round of BEAD have included more fiber in their buildout plans. “I'm looking to see that bolstered in data once we see the final awards,” he said. “But I think there's a tendency in the industry to look at WISPs as sort of a monolithic, pure-play kind of group of ISPs. They're not. They're using every possible technology.”
High-cost threshold vs. low-cost preference
During the Biden Administration, the NTIA implemented an extremely high-cost threshold policy, where state broadband offices were encouraged to set a cost, above which they considered it too expensive to deploy fiber and they would look at other technologies such as FWA and satellite.
But now, with the Trump Administration’s Benefit of the Bargain policy, the extremely high-cost threshold policy has been thrown out. Instead, states have been directed to favor the lowest-cost bid for a location, regardless of technology.
Of the Biden policy, Zumwalt said, “I've got some great empathy for the state broadband offices because they got some really powerful cues that it was important to put fiber wherever they could.” As a result, some of the initial proposals during the Biden Administration included fiber to locations that would cost as much as $70,000 per drop.
These extremely high costs may have been the result of state broadband offices setting very high-cost thresholds in an attempt to bring fiber to as many locations as possible. Or, those high-cost awards may have been the result of FWA and satellite providers not bidding for the location at all, perhaps feeling that fiber was preferred and it wasn’t worth their time to bid.
Now, the process has been flipped on its head where broadband offices are directed to award bids to the lowest-cost bidders. There’s been some criticism of this approach because it’s similar to the low-cost strategy of the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program, which gave awards to the lowest bidders. The RDOF program has been a disaster with a lot of bidders defaulting on their obligations.
Oklahoma balances low-cost mandate with tribal rules
Oklahoma is one state that selected FWA for a substantial number of its eligible locations (21.2%); while it selected fiber for 63.7% of locations and satellite for the remaining 15.1%.
Oklahoma is unique in that it has 39 federally-recognized tribes in the state. And regardless of BEAD rules, the tribes must consent to the broadband providers awarded grants on their tribal lands. This tribal consent supersedes the authority of the Oklahoma Broadband Office.
“Over two thirds of our state is tribal land, and so tribal consent is required, whether it is fixed wireless, fiber, satellite, it doesn't matter, there still has to be tribal consent,” said Edyn Rolls, chief strategic officer of the Oklahoma Broadband Office. “So, in many of those cases, we were limited in the providers that would receive consent. That’s an interesting dynamic here in Oklahoma that's different than a majority of other states.”
She said there wasn’t a particular pattern as to which type of technology all the different tribes preferred.
There is a risk that NTIA will come back to some tribes and say their preferred provider is too expensive and refuse to authorize the BEAD grant.
Rolls said, “Oklahoma will continue to comply with the federal government and their rules and regulations, but we will also continue to advocate for our state and for the citizens of our state. We have awarded many projects that might be slightly higher cost in those tribal areas because we think it is really important to continue to advocate for tribal entities to have sovereignty.”
Outside of tribal areas, the Oklahoma State Broadband Office mainly awarded BEAD grants to the least-costly bids, pursuant to the rules of the Benefit of the Bargain round.
As previously mentioned, Oklahoma has also awarded 15.1% (5,200 locations) to low-Earth orbit satellite. Asked why the state gave all the LEO awards to Amazon’s Kuiper, which doesn’t even have a commercial constellation yet, Rolls said, “Very candidly, they bid the lower cost.”
Want to learn more about broadband rollout in the U.S.? Don't miss Fierce Network and TIA's Broadband Nation Expo in Orlando, Florida, from Nov. 17-19. Speakers include T-Mobile, Comcast, AT&T, U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIA and more. Register today.