[News] The Divide: Gigi Sohn on the bad state of BEAD and promise of public broadband

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At a Glance

• Sohn's perspective on how the BEAD program is unfolding under the Trump administration's NTIA (03:23)

• What's happening with BEAD non-deployment funds and why Republicans need to speak up to help retain them (16:10)

• How communities that are being left behind by BEAD can secure their own broadband futures with public networks (24:24)

In this episode, we speak with Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), about the state of the BEAD program (once known as the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program), why BEAD is looking a lot more like "RDOF 2.0" and how public broadband networks can step up to deliver connectivity for communities.

For a quick recap: The BEAD program was revised by the Trump administration in June to shift from a fiber-focused program to a tech-neutral one prioritizing low costs. Since then, states have had to revise their previously approved BEAD plans and re-run their bidding processes, and states are now reportedly being forced again by the NTIA to negotiate bids even lower. The NTIA is expected to approve final BEAD awards by the end of the year.

Sohn says she was initially hopeful, when the NTIA released its "course correction" for BEAD in June, that states would still get to prioritize the best broadband projects for their communities. Early results were promising, with many states continuing to prioritize fiber.

But since then, as other states have heavily funded low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite, and as the NTIA is reportedly forcing project costs down even further, "my optimism has completely crumbled," she adds.

'It is RDOF 2.0'

BEAD is now feeling more like "RDOF 2.0" – or, a rerun of the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), says Sohn. The RDOF was run as a reverse-auction and saw project grants go to the lowest bidders, which later resulted in ISPs demanding more funds and defaulting on their bids.

"What's going to happen, and what has already happened, is there have been under-bidding, right? And they'll start to build in Appalachia, and they'll be like, 'this is too damn expensive. I'm going to default.' So in June, it was 'course correction.' In October, it is RDOF 2.0, and I'm just beside myself," Sohn says.

The other outstanding issue for the BEAD program is the role of non-deployment funds. As per the 2021 law that created BEAD, states were allocated a set sum of money via the BEAD program, and any funds not used for deployment projects were to be put toward "non-deployment" activities to help people connect to and use the Internet. It is still unclear if and how the Trump administration's NTIA intends to allow states to use those remaining funds.

"The only thing that's going to turn this around – and this is something that I'm working on in, not only my AAPB capacity, but also my capacity as a senior fellow and public advocate with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society – is to try to get state legislators, governors, particularly Republicans, right, to weigh in and say ... 'that's our money, by statute, that's our money,'" Sohn says. "Now, [Republican Senator] Shelley Moore Capito ... has said something. Governor Landry from Louisiana said something ... We need more, and we need a lot more. That is your money."

Role for public broadband

As the executive director of AAPB, which advocates for and represents community-owned broadband networks, Sohn also aims to use this moment to encourage more communities to consider taking broadband matters into their own hands.

"This is going to be where I'm going to be beating the drum in the next year," she says.

Sohn intends to make her case to counties across the US that public broadband networks are solid economic investments.

"What I'm trying to convince them is that, look, yeah, it's expensive when you first look at it, but it's an investment that pays dividends ... and not only soft dividends – like more people moving in and a more robust housing market and happier businesses and more businesses moving in – but actually can create revenue streams for you," she says. "You could lease out lines to private providers ... you could, you know, have service contracts with public safety and alarm companies and, you know, other service organizations that need those lines."

One example she referenced is the city of Huntsville, Alabama, where Huntsville Utilities decided to build its own fiber transport network and now leases its fiber lines to Google Fiber "under a 20-year agreement that now generates seven figures annually," according to AAPB.

Sohn also emphasizes that "more and more companies" are "dying to help municipalities" launch public and open access networks, and she's hopeful more communities will consider exploring public broadband in light of BEAD's shortcomings.

"During the height of BEAD and the Biden administration, things kind of slowed down for us ... because I think people thought, 'oh, BEAD was going to solve it all ... what do I need to build my own for? I'm gonna be taken care of'," says Sohn. "And now that's clearly not going to be the case."