Chambers Criticizes BEAD Delays, Calls for Clearer Broadband Standards

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2025 — What was billed as the nation’s biggest rural broadband push has instead become a roadblock, said Conexon co-CEO Jonathan Chambers, who argued the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program’s long delays and muddled standards have frozen construction across rural America.

Chambers spoke at the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber for Breakfast series, hosted by association CEO Gary Bolton, Chambers said BEAD “had the opposite effect” of its intended purpose. 

Chambers, whose company partnered with electric cooperatives to deploy fiber in rural communities, compared BEAD unfavorably to the Federal Communications Commission’s earlier Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction. He argued that distributing broadband funds through a “single-number” auction model rewarding providers who deliver the best service for the least public cost would have been faster and fairer than the current patchwork of state-level applications.