BEAD Plans Approved: $736 Million for Washington and $629 Million for Alaska
Now 47 states have received NTIA approval, and 35 have cleared NIST review.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2026 – Alaska and Washington’s spending plans under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program were approved by the Commerce Department on Wednesday, making it 47 states to get clearance.
With Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration having signed off, the states will need to get their grant agreements developed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology, another Commerce agency, before accessing its funds.
Of its more than $1 billion in BEAD funding allocated in 2023, Alaska’s approved plan would spend more than $629 million to deploy broadband to 46,500 locations. Of those, more than 51 percent will get fiber, another 34 percent will get low-Earth orbit satellite service from SpaceX, and the rest will receive terrestrial fixed wireless.
The state had initially been planning to spend more than $776 million in its draft plan. The Trump administration is looking to reduce deployment costs, especially on a per-location basis, and asked states to negotiate certain awards down before giving the final green light.
Washington, for its part, will spend more than $736 million of its $1.2 billion allocation to connect nearly 167,000 locations. Of those, 35 percent will get fiber, 38 percent will get fixed wireless, and 27 percent will get LEO.
The states’ draft plans did not have significantly different technology splits or total location counts from their NTIA-approved plans.
According to data posted on the Alaska Broadband Office’s website, cable provider GCI’s roughly $140 million preliminary award fell to $120 million. That’s what the company’s management team said they expected on the company’s earnings call on Feb.11.
Quintillion’s tentative awards, totalling more than $127 million, were reduced to nearly $48 million, but the location count fell by just 82 to 1,028. It’s looking to lay fiber to St. Lawrence Island (pop. 1,300) in the Bering Sea, more than 120 miles from the Alaskan mainland, and a small village with no road access.
Alaska will have more than $360 million in non-deployment funds, and Washington will have more than $490 million. It’s not yet clear what NTIA will allow those funds to be used for, but the agency has confirmed it will allow states to keep the money after fears of a claw back.
The agency held two listening sessions on how to use the money this month, where stakeholders suggested ideas like middle mile networks, NG911, and workforce development. NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth has suggested she would support using the money to speed up local permitting processes.
Updated NTIA tracker
NTIA also unveiled a new dashboard Wednesday which now includes information on which states have been approved by NIST and which have signed their final award agreements and secured access to funding.
So far 35 of the 47 states with NTIA-approved final proposals have also cleared NIST review, and 20 of those 35 have signed their final award agreements. Three territories – American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands – have also signed their final award agreements
At least one state, Louisiana, has signed contracts with BEAD winners and got those projects underway.
As of last week the state had not signed a contract with SpaceX, which has asked states to agree to a set of additional conditions around performance testing and financial reporting, among other things. The company told states participation from LEO providers could be “untenable” without similar measures.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a Senate hearing this month that the department wasn’t on board with SpaceX’s proposal.
“That rider is outside of our guidelines, is outside the statute, and it is rejected by us,” he said. “There will be no rider.”
He added, “If SpaceX does not want to live without the rider, then you will definitely go find an alternative means of execution so you can deliver broadband to each and every one of the people in your state.”
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