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# Four State Broadband Directors Say BEAD's 'True-Up' Round Won't Finish the Job
- URL: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/four-state-broadband-directors-say-beads-true-up-round-wont-finish-the-job/
- Published: 2026-09-23T23:58:24.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-23T23:58:24.000Z
- Description: Washington state cited roughly 1,000 underserved locations ineligible for supplemental funding.
- Author: Akul Saxena
- Tags: BEAD, Peter Voderberg, Jordan Arnold, Megan Minor, Mike Sanders, Joey Wender,, BroadbandOhio, Oklahoma Broadband Office, Tarana Wireless Summit 2026, workforce development, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Broadband Funding, Fixed Wireless, Community Anchor Institutions, #with-siderail

MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 23, 2026 — A supplemental federal broadband funding round excludes some communities still needing service and may underfund others, state broadband directors said Thursday.

The round, known informally as a “true-up” round, will allow states to award grants for unserved locations missing from their approved plans under the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Those locations include homes and businesses incorrectly mapped as served, addresses where previously funded projects fell through, and newly built homes. 

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Guidance issued in early September 2026 by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers BEAD, sets eligibility and funding limits that officials said could prevent states from closing those gaps.

### *Washington’s 1,000 underserved locations excluded from supplemental round*

Only unserved locations qualify for the supplemental round, meaning addresses lacking broadband speeds of at least 25 megabits per second download and 3 Mbps upload, said **Jordan Arnold**, Washington’s state broadband director. Underserved locations, which meet that threshold but lack 100 \* 20 Mbps service, are excluded.

Community anchor institutions, including schools, libraries and health clinics, are also ineligible, said moderator **Joey Wender**, executive director of the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition. The original BEAD program allowed states to fund faster connections to those institutions after addressing unserved and underserved locations.

In Washington state, defaulted projects have left roughly 1,000 underserved locations needing service that the supplemental round cannot fund, Arnold said. “I’m just banging my head against the wall because that community desperately needs service.”

Unsigned contracts and unfinished environmental reviews have also left providers exhausted. At a meeting with Arnold the previous week, some questioned whether they had the energy to apply for the supplemental round.

The supplemental round does not require states to connect every eligible location, said **Peter Voderberg**, director of the state's BroadbandOhio. 

### *Indiana questions funding limits as Oklahoma weighs contract delays*

Funding for the additional locations will depend on what earlier projects cost, panelists said. 

NTIA calculates each state’s allowance by multiplying its average cost per location in its final proposal by the number of eligible supplemental locations, said **Megan Minor**, Indiana’s chief broadband officer.

Scattered addresses may be more expensive to connect than that average allows. “These might not be locations that are really in cohesive project areas to make the economics work for such a low cost cap,” Minor said.

Splitting nearby locations across funding rounds can force fixed wireless providers to build more infrastructure than necessary, said **Claude Aiken**, chief strategy and legal officer at Nextlink Internet. A provider might choose a tower site to reach the locations in its first grant, then find that additional nearby locations added in a later round fall outside the tower’s reach. Serving them could require another tower and a new environmental review.

“The more we can address in one fell swoop, the better,” Aiken said.

The supplemental round comes as states are still finalizing their original awards, raising questions about how to coordinate the two rounds. In Oklahoma, remaining grant agreements could be delayed so providers can incorporate additional locations into their construction plans, said **Mike Sanders**, director of the Oklahoma Broadband Office. Signing now, only to require revised plans six months later, would be “an absolute travesty,” he said.

In Ohio, another 30-day extension will give the state more time to finalize its remaining contracts, Voderberg said. Just over 10,000 of the roughly 90,000 addresses the state plans to serve still need providers selected through a negotiated award process.

### *Ohio seeks workforce funding as states press for remaining BEAD dollars*

Leftover balances are described as “benefit of the bargain savings” rather than non-deployment funds in NTIA’s supplemental policy notice, Voderberg said, raising concerns about whether states will in fact receive them. 

Washington expects about $350 million after supplemental deployment and Indiana about $300 million, their directors said. Oklahoma has roughly $340 million remaining, Sanders said.

The funds could support both the networks and the communities they serve, Aiken said. Permitting assistance, workforce training and connections to the broader internet could help sustain projects, while affordability programs and digital skills training could help residents use them.

In Ohio, priorities include utility pole replacement, work needed to accommodate broadband lines and restoring a $50 million workforce development program that shut down because anticipated funding was unavailable, Voderberg said. He would even fund a Federal Aviation Administration training program if federal officials required it, emphasizing his willingness to accept other uses to keep the dollars in Ohio.

“We want this money to stay in Ohio to benefit Ohio,” he said, invoking the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President **Joe Biden** in 2021, which established BEAD. “The J in IIJA is jobs.”