BEAD Must Pay More Attention to Guaranteeing ISP Performance: Panelists

Romano, who was named Tuesday as NTCA's next CEO (see 2602100009), told attendees that BEAD deployment work will face big challenges, including possible permitting holdups and supply chain difficulties such as longer lead times for fiber due to hyperscaler demand for data center fiber. Another challenge will be meeting workforce needs, including both skilled telecom workers and staffers at the local, state and federal level to process permits, Romano said.

Garner criticized the Commerce Department's 2025 revamp of BEAD rules for stripping out the affordability requirement. Affordability is the largest component of the digital divide, he said, as shown by the low rates of broadband adoption in lower-income brackets.

With the loss of the federal affordable connectivity program, Garner added, two models of state support are emerging: the New York model, where ISPs over a certain size are mandated to provide a low-cost offering to low-income households, and the Oregon model, where the state Lifeline program will help subsidize low-income customers above what the federal Lifeline program does. Garner noted that Connecticut has also adopted the New York-style model, and a number of other states are going that route.

Garner acknowledged that BEAD clearly won't finish the universal access job, as many locations won't be served by the program, and that number will grow due to BEAD defaults and defaults in other federal deployment programs, such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Even for the locations that do get service via BEAD, 23% are being covered by low earth orbit satellite, and SpaceX already seems to be indicating it won't guarantee service for some locations it was awarded, Garner said. Romano said that to NTIA's credit, the agency seems to want to apply vigorous testing to BEAD locations.

In addition, Garner said NTIA’s March 11 notice laying out what the White House considers to be examples of onerous state regulation of AI (see 2602040047) also will apparently set out what are approved uses of BEAD non-deployment money.

IP Interconnection

Some telecom experts at the NARUC event raised concerns about the FCC's open proceeding on transitioning to all-IP interconnection for voice services, saying it should still guarantee service and call quality for those who would remain on legacy time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks. California Public Utilities Commissioner Darcie Houck said a significant number of Californians don't have access to competitive voice markets, especially in rural and tribal areas, and the voice interconnection NPRM should focus more on universal service. FCC commissioners adopted the IP interconnection NPRM in October (see 2510280024).

NCTA Vice President Steve Morris said the IP interconnection NPRM floats some "aggressive proposals," which could be a signal from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that the agency wants to move quickly on the issue.

Diana Eisner, USTelecom's vice president of regulatory and legal affairs, said a lot of voice traffic continues to go through TDM switches, even if the call originates and terminates in IP, because of the existence of legacy rules about TDM interconnection. She said the lack of rules governing IP interconnection disincentivize providers from IP interconnection.

Permitting

Another topic discussed repeatedly at the NARUC event was electricity permitting, particularly for power data centers.

“Wireless infrastructure is AI infrastructure” and needs to be included in AI-related conversations alongside energy, said Mike Saperstein, the Wireless Industry Association's senior vice president of government affairs. While wireless is inherently a national service, he said, a national permitting framework must also reflect state and local preferences, such as local zoning. As long as those zoning rules are proportionate, predictable and transparent, the wireless industry “can live with it.”

Saperstein also expressed support for the federal American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) and similar efforts at the state level to codify wireless permitting streamlining. West Virginia and Colorado have recently passed such bills, and others are coming, he said.

Rural deployments of wireless infrastructure would benefit from a more predictable and proportionate fee structure, Saperstein said. There’s no limiting principle when it comes to fees for new infrastructure builds, and fees often aren’t related to costs at all, he argued. That can make them out of line for the project’s scope, he added.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and panel member Scott Peters, D-Calif., highlighted the need for energy-related permitting reform. The U.S. is competing with China to lead the world in AI, but it lacks the right electrical infrastructure to make that happen, Guthrie said. Europe’s regulatory environment and energy policy have made it noncompetitive in AI, he added.

Guthrie also said that in the U.S., setting up new power generation means facing lengthy litigation aimed at trying to stop it. Permitting reform needs to be bipartisan to show that the rules will be consistent from administration to administration, he argued. While there's a push to federalize approval of electricity transmission, he said he doesn't want to take away states’ role.