Illinois BEAD Plan Approved
It was the last state awaiting NTIA clearance
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2025 – The Trump administration approved Tuesday Illinois’s spending plan under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
It was the last state still waiting on approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. All 56 states and territories now have the federal greenlight to begin awarding grants under the $42.45 billion program.
“BEAD’s core mission is to ensure universal broadband availability across our country,” NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth said in a statement. “With all 56 Final Proposals now approved, we are achieving Congress’s vision of closing the digital divide once and for all.”
Illinois’s approved plan would spend $831 million of its $1.04 billion allocation, down from the $970 million in its draft from last year.
The approved plan would get fiber to 68 percent of locations, followed by fixed wireless to nearly 24 percent and satellite to 8 percent. A small number would get cable, according to an overview posted by NTIA.
That’s compared to the state’s draft plan aiming for 75 percent fiber, 15 percent satellite, and nearly 10 percent fixed wireless. A small amount would still have got cable.
The count of satellite locations fell to 11,500 in the approved plan, down from more than 23,600 in the draft. Fiber locations fell to 97,000 from more than 117,000 and fixed wireless more than doubled to 33,600 from 15,300.
The state’s total BEAD-eligible location count fell to 142,400 from nearly 157,000 in the draft.
NTIA is asking states to reduce their satellite awards after new federal coverage maps showed expanded coverage or misclassified buildings. California’s approved plan included those changes.
States still negotiating with satellite companies can also comply, but those with existing contracts will need SpaceX or Amazon to agree to any reduction in locations.
NTIA’s release Tuesday didn't mention Illinois by name, but Roth touted the before-and-after in a post on X. The agency said Roth was touring BEAD projects in Virginia with Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va.
Most states were approved in late 2025 or Early 2026
Most states had their BEAD plan approved in late 2025 or early 2026. Projects are already breaking ground in a few places as states finalize grant contracts and ISPs start working to secure permits.
For months only California and Illinois lacked approval. California’s plan was approved by NTIA July 20, but neither state has completed a second review from another Commerce Agency.
The National Institute for Standards and Technology is serving as BEAD’s grants manager and has to clear state plans before they can draw down funding. NIST review involves much less curing than the NTIA process.
During a June 30 oversight hearing, Roth told Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., that NTIA was still going back and forth with the state on revisions at the time.
“We have communicated changes to Illinois that we need to see,” Roth said. “The proposal that was submitted to us just didn’t meet the mark, in terms of finding efficiencies and meeting the principles of the benefit of the bargain reforms.”
While a decrease from its draft plan, Illinois’s approved plan would spend nearly 83 percent of its BEAD allocation. Most states spent far less of their allocations in their approved plans, partly due to Trump administration rule changes aimed at reducing deployment costs.
Some approved plans, like Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, don’t involve any deployment projects because the territory or NTIA determined there were no eligible locations.
Because states spent so little of their allocations, which were made in 2023, more than $21 billion of BEAD’s funding is not going to be spent on deployment projects. At the same June hearing, Roth told lawmakers NTIA was aiming to have guidance on how states could use that money some time this summer.
Under the Biden administration, states had been planning on using the money for broadband adoption efforts and workforce development, among other things.
Many ideas have been floated since the Trump administration rescinded approval for non-deployment activities, like boosting local permitting agencies or shoring up defaults.
