Daily Digest 6/13/2025 (LEO)
Friday, June 13, 2025
Headlines Daily Digest
“Two years of work in two months”
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What Do We Know About LEO BEAD Bids?
Does Starlink Have the Speeds for BEAD?
Underserved Rural Americans View Fiber as Best Option for Broadband Infrastructure
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The recent changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program "undoubtedly create additional work and effort for Maine and every other state and territory," said Maine Connectivity Authority president Andrew Butcher. "So we will execute it as quickly and efficiently as possible, but it kind of jams two years of work into two months." The new timeline is difficult, but "Secretary Lutnick has committed that funds will be awarded and projects started this year. We're going to hold them to that," he said. Butcher said he was relieved that the BEAD program wasn't canceled entirely. He pointed to President Trump's recent move to kill the separate $2.7 billion grant program created by the Digital Equity Act of 2021. Maine was supposed to receive $35 million from the Digital Equity Act for several programs that would provide devices, digital skills training, STEM education, telehealth access, and other services. Trump claimed the Digital Equity Act is "racist and illegal." Butcher said that "for all anyone knows, it was canceled simply because the word 'equity' is in it." He pointed out that the same word appears in the title of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Given that, "the updated policy guidance for the BEAD program could have been worse," Butcher said.
Low Earth Orbit satellite internet service providers, like Starlink and (eventually) Amazon’s Kuiper, are poised to win big in the restructured Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. That’s because the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s new policy notice, released June 6, makes two major changes that benefit LEO technologies. Specifically, the policy notice: 1) Removes BEAD’s preference for end-to-end fiber networks; and 2) Directs states to give preference to ISPs that request the least amount of BEAD funding in their bids. LEO (and fixed wireless) networks are less expensive to build than wired networks like fiber, cable, or DSL, so these changes effectively give Starlink (and Kuiper) a major advantage in the BEAD bidding process. However, just days after the policy notice was released, a report from Ookla found that only 17.4 percent of U.S. Starlink users receive service that meets BEAD’s minimum speed requirements 100/20 Mbps). By contrast, fiber networks, without question, meet BEAD’s requirements for speed, reliability, latency, and scalability for decades to come (in addition to more affordable service for customers). This raises questions about LEO's ability to fully participate in BEAD. In any event, LEO providers need only to submit applications that request less support than their competitors. So, what do we know about LEO bids?
The broadband industry has been reeling since the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released new rules for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program on June 6. Now, state broadband offices are scrambling to redo their subgrant programs in 90 days––right when many were poised to begin making their BEAD awards. The news this week has been dominated by analysis of the changes to BEAD and how it will affect U.S. broadband infrastructure buildout for years to come. A new report provides an undercurrent to all of this BEAD news we've been reading: according to Ookla's Speedtest data, even though Starlink satellite internet service is improving, it is still not up to speed.
State broadband heads are focused on keeping participation in the new round of bidding mandated for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration handed down new rules on June 6 for the $42.45 billion program that require a new round of bidding for all states with a new scoring rubric, among other things. “We could have a situation where we have less competition this time than we did last time. People are going to get out, they’re not going to want to participate and spend more money,” said Glen Howie, head of the Arkansas broadband office. “So my number one goal has been to keep everybody in the boat and keep morale up.”
The biggest impact of changing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program is on the public living in the rural areas that are covered by BEAD. Let me start with BEAD eligibility. The new rules include a provision that wireless internet service providers that claim speeds to the Federal Communications Commission of 100/20 Mbps using unlicensed spectrum can certify their capability to State Broadband Offices and have those areas removed from BEAD eligibility. That means people living in the removed areas will not see a new broadband alternative. My guess is that millions of homes will be removed from the BEAD map and will be declared as already being served—which will be a huge surprise to the people living in these areas. The biggest change in the new BEAD rules is that there will be a lot less fiber built with BEAD funds. Households in BEAD areas are likely to see BEAD money going to a WISP or Starlink—and on paper, that will be their fast ISP option. The consensus has been that BEAD was going to bring fiber to thousands of counties. Unless public pressure reverses some or all of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Notice, there will be many millions of rural homes that still won’t have adequate broadband. I guess this means that States and local governments will have to regroup and get back to tackling the rural broadband gap a little bit at a time.
The House Appropriations Committee advanced numerous subcommittee allocations for Fiscal Year 2026. The measure was approved with a vote of 35 to 28. The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act provides a total discretionary allocation. Earmarks include $643 million in Community Project Funding for 509 projects requested by 192 Members. There is $3.77 billion for Rural Development programs, prioritizing funding for home ownership and infrastructure lending, including $90 million for the ReConnect broadband program.
The Fiber Broadband Association revealed results from a new consumer broadband study performed by RVA LLC. The study shows that Americans understand that fiber broadband is the best option for reliable, high-speed internet, and any other option falls short in supporting existing and future digital demands. Based on the 2025 study, 75 percent of both rural adults and suburban/urban adults now believe that high-quality internet is very important to their household. RVA surveyed 2,650 Americans, focusing on which broadband technology they perceived as having the best performance. Respondents in rural locations with less than 100/20 Mbps broadband service ranked fiber broadband higher than all other options combined. Fixed wireless broadband ranked lowest with 4 percent of votes, followed by traditional satellite, mobile wireless, DSL, and low-earth-orbit satellite.
People are replacing Google search with artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, a major shift that has unleashed a new kind of bot loose on the web. To offer users a tidy AI summary instead of Google’s “10 blue links,” companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic have started sending out bots to retrieve and recap content in real time. They are scraping webpages and loading relevant content into the AI’s memory and “reading” far more content than a human ever would. According to data from TollBit, a New York-based start-up that helps news publishers monitor and make money when AI companies use their content, traffic from retrieval bots grew 49 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from the fourth quarter of 2024. TollBit’s report, based on data from 266 websites—half of which are run by national and local news organizations—suggests that the growth of bots that retrieve information when a user prompts an AI model is on an exponential curve.
Beware of the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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