Evan Swarztrauber: How NTIA Can Avoid a BEAD Slush Fund

When $21 billion is up for grabs in Washington, you can expect a wide range of interests to extend their hands. President Trump’s reforms to the federal government’s signature rural broadband program have resulted in huge savings for taxpayers—a good “problem” to have, in theory. But the program’s administrators should take care in the coming weeks and months to avoid creating a slush fund that wastes taxpayer funds, distorts the broadband market, or undermines the letter and spirit of the program’s authorizing legislation.

When Trump reassumed office in 2025, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration began revamping the agency’s rural broadband program with “Benefit of the Bargain” reforms. After implementing technological neutrality and cutting excessive deployment costs, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program’s estimated price tag for connecting rural America went from $42.5 billion to about $21 billion, saving potentially 50% of the initiative’s congressional allocation.

Many have understandably advocated the funds be returned to the U.S. Treasury. But the BEAD program’s authorizing statute, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, stipulates that states may use the remaining funds for certain “non-deployment” purposes that advance the goal of the program—closing the digital divide. NTIA recently held listening sessions to hear from a range of stakeholders on how the agency should condition those remaining funds, and the suggestions were as varied as the interests who spoke.

The suggestions included everything from subsidizing middle mile deployment and consumer broadband bills to workforce development and permitting reform implementation. Some even suggested there should be no restrictions at all—NTIA should simply let states spend the money however they choose. 

One headscratcher came from stakeholders representing the commercial mobile wireless industry, asking NTIA to fund the deployment of commercial cell towers. T-Mobile touted that such a subsidy could connect up to 99% of rural Americans, even though the company already made a binding commitment to meet that threshold as a condition of its 2020 merger with Sprint.

Even more perplexing is that these same commercial interests have discouraged the Federal Communication Commission from pursuing a “5G Fund” to subsidize mobile wireless in rural areas due to ongoing problems with mapping mobile service in those areas. Those issues aren’t solved, so why is the industry now asking NTIA to subsidize deployment where it had previously told the FCC to stand down?

It is not surprising for a commercial interest to seek a government-funded leg up in a competitive market like broadband. It illustrates why NTIA must narrowly tailor spending conditions—to prevent companies and governments alike from using the funds to shape markets in their preferred image.

This is especially true for use cases that have broad bipartisan appeal, like using BEAD funding to upgrade legacy 911 systems across the country. We should all want our 911 infrastructure to have modern, multimedia capabilities. But for taxpayers to foot the bill, that infrastructure should be bespoke and specific to public safety—not merely subsidies for general purpose networks that could be used for 911. NTIA should clarify that any BEAD-funded 911 project must be for public safety use only, and not a backdoor effort to subsidize certain competitors in the general market. Slapping a “public safety” label on an ISP doesn’t make one a 911 network. 

So how should NTIA proceed? First, look to the statute. BEAD was passed to close the digital divide. While the vast majority of rural Americans are slated for service under the program, there may be gaps due to mapping issues, defaults in past programs like the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, and other bottlenecks like workforce challenges. Funding workforce and permitting efforts could minimize such holes, but NTIA should still ensure that some funding is available as a “rainy day” set-aside to plug remaining gaps if a second round of bidding is required to fulfill the mandate of the infrastructure law.

Second, NTIA should reject any suggestion of funding commercial mobile wireless service. BEAD was expressly written to fund fixed, last-mile, home broadband connections. It was never intended as a backdoor 5G Fund. If mobile wireless companies now believe that a program is needed to fund rural mobile service—despite merger commitments—then they should lobby Congress or the FCC to pursue such a program separately.

Finally, NTIA should be crystal clear in what qualifies as next-gen 911 to avoid a public safety effort being misused to subsidize overbuilding of existing service or otherwise subsidizing general purpose commercial networks.

NTIA and the Commerce Department should be commended for shepherding BEAD toward a $21 billion cost savings, leaving ample room for targeted spending that advances the program’s original purpose. A rainy-day fund would give the agency needed flexibility to ensure that consumers aren’t left behind through no fault of their own. Beyond that, clear guidance on any remaining funds should prevent those dollars from enabling a “broadband-related” free-for-all.

Evan Swarztrauber is Principal at CorePoint Strategies, a technology and telecommunications policy consulting firm. Previously, he was a policy advisor at the Federal Communications Commission. This Expert Opinion is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

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