[News] Roth: No State Net Neutrality, Affordability Laws for BEAD Participants

The following article appeared on Broadband Breakfast:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2025 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is telling states that participants in the agency’s $42.45 billion broadband grant program will have to be exempt from certain state broadband regulations, the agency’s top official said Tuesday.

NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth said Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program participants would be exempt from state laws mandating net neutrality rules or price caps for low- income customers, throughout their entire footprint within that state.

“To protect the BEAD investment, we are clarifying that BEAD providers must be protected throughout their service area in a state, while the provider is still within its BEAD period of performance,” she said. “Specifically, any state receiving BEAD funds must exempt BEAD providers throughout their state footprint, from broadband-specific economic regulations, such as price regulation and net neutrality.”

Roth spoke at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington. The BEAD period of performance is the window providers have to build out their grant-funded network, four years from the date an ISP's grant is finalized.

One state, New York, has a broadband affordability law on the books that caps large ISPs’ plans at $20 per month for low-income households, but other state legislatures have been considering the idea. New York had said its incumbent providers largely offered plans in line with the law before it went into effect.

NTIA has already been successful in convincing California lawmakers not to go through with a similar bill. After being told by the agency that BEAD participants, and potentially all applicants, would have to be exempted to avoid jeopardizing the state’s more than $1.8 billion in BEAD funding, the bill’s sponsor backed off in July.

Several states have net neutrality laws that prevent blocking and throttling of traffic, including California, Oregon, Washington, and Maine.

Roth also said BEAD participants will have to agree in writing not to take any other federal subsidies, including operational subsidies like the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund, to help build or operate their BEAD networks.

“BEAD was designed to close broadband gaps once and for all, not create another cycle of dependency,” she said. “Congress envisioned ‘future-proof’ networks that would stand on their own, not require permanent federal subsidies or future bailouts.”

NTCA, which represents rural providers that participate in FCC opex support programs, said they wanted more clarification on the terms of the restriction.

“There are many rural locations where providers are already receiving ongoing support, and we certainly hope and presume that nothing in this condition would disrupt existing ongoing support in an area merely because a provider hopes to leverage BEAD funding – along with substantial private capital and matching funds – to upgrade an existing network in that area,” NTCA CEO

Shirley Bloomfield said in a statement to Broadband Breakfast.

Bloomfield also noted that in a 2023 inquiry, the FCC contemplated BEAD recipients needing operational support to continue serving the remote areas targeted by the program. She said a “broader thoughtful conversation” was necessary on how the programs would interplay and that “NTCA is eager and ready to dive in on that conversation.”

Roth said the agency was still on track to approve “the majority” of states’ draft results this year, the final step before getting grant money out the door. She confirmed the agency had rejected some “outlier projects with unreasonably expensive costs or questionable feasibility” included in states’ provisional awards.

Non-deployment

States and territories have largely delivered on the Trump administration’s desire for cost savings. Collectively, those that have reported draft results have come in $21 billion under budget.

It’s not clear what will happen to that money, but Roth said the NTIA was considering allowing states to use it for things like permitting reform.

“NTIA is also considering how states can use some of the BEAD savings – what has commonly been referred to as non-deployment money – on key outcomes like permitting reform,” she said.

“No final decisions have been made, but this could be a powerful way to advance BEAD’s goals.”

Under the Biden administration, states had been planning to spend leftover BEAD money on things like broadband adoption projects. In June, when the Trump administration handed down new rules for the program, NTIA nixed approval for any non-deployment activities and said more guidance was forthcoming.

A survey of 42 state broadband heads by Doug Adams, head of marketing firm Broadband Marketers, found that few states were confident they would ultimately retain their non-deployment dollars, but many were making an effort to convince governors and lawmakers to advocate for keeping the cash.

Gigi Sohn, head of the American Association for Public Broadband, said earlier this month she was also trying to coordinate advocacy from Republican officials on the issue. So far at least Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, R, and Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Shelley Moore Capito, R- W.Va., have said they want the administration not to claw back any remaining BEAD funds.