12 Days of Broadband

A Full Court Press for Permitting Reform in 2025

Federal agencies and lawmakers made progress in broadband and energy permitting rules in 2025.

Akul Saxena

Dec 31, 2025 — 7 min read

Editor's Note: Published on Dec. 8, 2025; republished on Dec. 31, 2025.

Permitting reform became one of the few cross-cutting infrastructure buzzwords in 2025. It became a shared obsession for broadband builders seeking BEAD funding and for energy developers racing to add generation, transmission, and data-center-linked capacity.

12 Days of Broadband 2025 (click to open)

On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: One Carr driving the Federal Communications Commission.
On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Two superpowers racing toward AI superintelligence dominance.
On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Three branches of government (and some formerly independent agencies).
On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Four programs with Universal Service Funds.
On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: 56 states and territories without digital equity grants.
On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true level sent to me: Less than 6 months for a broadband permit.
On the Seventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Data center-powered electricity bills up 70 percent.
On the Eighth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: 800 megahertz of spectrum to sell at auction.
On the Ninth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: $9 billion + 12 billion (or $21 billion) in BEAD remaining funds.
On the Tenth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Not even $10/month for an affordable connectivity program.
On the Eleventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: Through BEAD and broadband, 110 million locations served.
On the Twelfth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me: More than 1200 megahertz of spectrum for unlicensed wireless.

**Click to read each of the 12 Days of Broadband articles!**

Broadband and energy deployment are both critical to national digital infrastructure investment. Both can be slowed by the same environmental, historic, and right-of-way bottlenecks that haunt power lines and pipelines.

In the broadband world, 2025 was less about a single breakthrough than a layered push across the White House, Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Commerce Department — with most of the momentum aimed at eliminating repetitive review for routine work and setting clearer timelines for the rest.