Broadband Breakfast on September 23, 2026 – Building BEAD

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The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has approved every state and territory’s grant agreement under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program. The effort has moved from paperwork to shovels. And the first connections have come online, in Nebraska and Louisiana. Other states are fast behind. This Broadband Breakfast Live Online session will discuss the urgency to deploy BEAD networks and discuss the pressures of the current timeframe for deployment. Panelists will address make-ready, pole attachments, environmental and historic preservation reviews, potential fiber and labor shortages, and more. We’ll also discuss compliance and reporting burdens. And, we’ll discuss the role that fixed wireless and satellite deployments are playing in BEAD.

Building BEAD: From Federal Awards to Finished Networks

This story examines how BEAD’s next phase will depend on workable contracts, timely permitting and consumer-focused accountability as broadband projects move toward construction.

Broadband BreakfastBroadband Breakfast

Panelists

• Steve Coran, Chair, Broadband, Spectrum, and Communications Infrastructure practice group, Lerman Senter
• Joe Kane, Director, Broadband and Spectrum Policy, ITIF
• Drew Clark (moderator), CEO and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Steve Coran is chair of Lerman Senter's Broadband, Spectrum, and Communications Infrastructure practice group. He represents broadband providers, private equity firms, equipment and technology companies, and new technology firms, serving their policy, transactional, compliance, and licensing needs. He also actively represents a trade association before the FCC, Congress, and other federal agencies in matters involving spectrum policy, broadband funding programs, Internet regulation, the Universal Service Fund, and other proceedings affecting wireless broadband service providers and technology interests.

Joe Kane is director of broadband and spectrum policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Previously, he was a technology policy fellow at the R Street Institute, where he covered spectrum policy, broadband deployment and regulation, competition, and consumer protection. Earlier, Joe was a graduate research fellow at the Mercatus Center, where he worked on Internet policy issues, telecom regulation, and the role of the FCC.

Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing tool to collect and verify broadband data left unpublished by the Federal Communications Commission. As CEO and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media community advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.