06/07/2025
BIG, BIG WIN WITH TODAY'S NTIA BEAD RESET!!!!
The following statement may be attributed to David Zumwalt, President and CEO, WISPA – The Association for Broadband Without Boundaries:
Washington, DC, June 6, 2025 – The NTIA’s new Policy Notice brings the $42.5 billion BEAD program in line with the technology-neutral intent of its enabling legislation, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). By prioritizing cost-effective, quickly deployable solutions that meet the IIJA’s baseline technical standards, the new Policy Notice eliminates the harmful delays – as well as the higher capital and operating costs – arising from BEAD’s prior positioning as a fiber-first program. It never needed to be, nor should it have been, that way.
The new guidance opens the door to all qualified technologies that deliver reliable broadband—fixed wireless, fiber, satellite, and others—ensuring that unserved Americans can get connected faster and more affordably. As a result, it will accelerate the deployment of connectivity to many who’ve long waited on the wrong side of the digital divide. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, this guidance will provide the flexibility to choose the right technology for individual community’s unique broadband needs.
The Policy Notice restores the overarching, first-principle purpose of BEAD: to connect the unserved. The homes and businesses that had no option for receiving broadband connectivity; the child previously reliant on a fast-food restaurant’s Wi-Fi to complete a homework assignment; the caregiver who previously had to travel 100 miles to receive life-saving medical advice; the community that could not compete for economic development investment.
Just as importantly, the updated guidance disincentivizes wasteful overbuilding, and broadens the slate of solution providers—particularly those that prioritize the most cost-effective technologies suited to each location. By removing the program’s rigid and costly regulatory overlays, the new guidelines encourage investment, innovation, and faster outcomes.
This guidance returns BEAD to the intent of the IIJA and will benefit communities across the country. Thank you, Secretary Lutnick and NTIA, for your hard work and efforts to make BEAD a successful program. WISPA welcomes this much-needed shift in direction. Our members—many of them small and locally rooted—stand ready to deliver the reliable broadband the IIJA envisioned, using all technologies: fixed wireless, fiber, satellite and more. We look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure that BEAD’s reinvigorated promise becomes reality.
NTIA Policy Notice here:
