BEAD Enters Cleanup Phase With More Broadband Gaps to Fill
Broadband policy expert Carol Mattey says the next round of funding could roll out in nine months
WASHINGTON Sept. 30, 2026 — Billions of dollars in federal broadband funding are moving from the planning stage to construction, but some homes and businesses could still be left without a connection.
The approval of all 50 states’ the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program plans marks the end of the program’s planning phase, but broadband providers and state officials still face a lengthy process to get the networks built and fill remaining coverage gaps.
Carol Mattey, a former deputy chief of the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, said the next major step will be a supplemental round of BEAD funding announced by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
“The planning phase is officially over, and we are moving into the actual execution phase,” Mattey said during the Sept. 30 Fiber Broadband Association webinar.
The supplemental process is designed to identify locations that were missed by the original BEAD process. NTIA will issue a new list of eligible locations, after which states will have 30 days to validate the list.
Providers will then have an opportunity to challenge locations that they believe are already served or are subject to an enforceable commitment. There will be no rebuttal round, Mattey said, and states will have another 30 days to adjudicate the challenges before sending their final lists to NTIA.
NTIA will use the approved number of locations to determine how much supplemental funding each state receives. States will then conduct another procurement round before submitting supplemental proposals to NTIA.
Mattey estimated the entire process could take about nine months, although the timing of NTIA’s reviews remains uncertain.
The supplemental funding also comes with a potentially significant constraint: NTIA will base each state’s funding cap on the average cost of locations approved in its original BEAD proposal multiplied by the number of additional unserved locations.
That could create problems because construction costs have risen since states developed their original plans, Mattey said. The original averages also included different technologies, including fiber, fixed wireless and satellite.
Because satellite projects generally had lower costs, their inclusion in the state averages could reduce the amount available for remaining locations, even though those locations may be among the most difficult and expensive to serve.
