Nate Karren: BEAD Saving Can Be Lifesaving… If We Let It
NTIA should let states put leftover BEAD funds toward Next Generation 9-1-1 upgrades, no new money from Congress required.
Today’s emergency networks are dangerously insufficient. According to the National Emergency Number Association, 88 percent of emergency communications centers (ECCs) experienced outages between 2024 and 2025.
The problem is that legacy 9-1-1 systems are becoming less reliable every year. Old analog systems, still in use today, were built for a time when calls were made with landlines and managed by selective routers. Unlike modern internet communication systems, redundant call pathways were not built in, meaning an entire ECC could go down from a single point of failure.
They also struggle to manage cell phone callers and frequently misroute them to ECCs far away from the emergency—a huge issue when 80 percent of emergency calls originate from mobile devices. When emergency communications break down, consumers are at risk.
Washington can right that wrong today without asking Congress for a single dollar.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is already working with a historic $42 billion budget under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program to expand broadband access across the country. Under the NTIA’s stewardship, a late-stage rule change eliminated bias towards fiber optics and promoted competitive bidding between technologies capable of delivering target speeds. The result: greater cost-efficiency and 21 billion dollars leftover.
The means are there, and the NTIA should let states use their BEAD leftovers to upgrade their emergency networks. Give states the choice to turn money-saving into lifesaving.
Upgrades can save lives. Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG911), internet-based emergency communications systems, can address the network fragility and cell phone mismanagement that plague legacy 9-1-1 systems. Not only can modern routing technology better manage mobile calls, but managing emergency systems over the internet allows for far more data, including text messages, pictures, video, and even location data. All this extra information that NG911 facilitates could make the difference between life and death for someone in crisis.
As for ECC outages caused by single points of infrastructure failure, internet networks are built for redundancy. If a line were damaged, for example, smart rerouting could simply deliver the call to the proper ECC by another route. Safer, more capable networks are the answer to persistent technology failures.
States already know this. NG911 has been a goal for years, and many states have plans in place, but only a handful have achieved a full transition. Research finds that many states lack the resources to tackle the high infrastructure costs. BEAD leftovers provide an opportunity to help.
The transition to broadband-powered networks places NG911 firmly in the NTIA’s lap. BEAD’s core mission is to close the opportunity gap between online and offline Americans, the so-called digital divide. With all final proposals approved in August, states are already using BEAD money to extend broadband networks to the most remote communities in the country. An NG911 transition would let that new infrastructure connect consumers.
The big reason states did not put BEAD funds towards NG911 in the first place is that original rules did not allow for it. The 2021 NTIA listed 8 specific eligible uses, and NG911 was not one of them. Later, a 2025 rule change ensured that all other proposed ideas were left to wait until the specifically authorized uses were finished. But nothing in Congress’s written law precluded NG911—disallowing it from BEAD was purely an administrative decision.
The NTIA can make that right today. When it placed a hold last year on all previously approved projects that did not explicitly have to do with building new broadband infrastructure, it promised future guidance regarding those paused projects. On September 3rd, it issued some new guidance, approving a second round of deployment funding to catch any locations that fell through the cracks. This guidance did not account for all the leftovers, though, and still leaves states’ questions about other proposed projects like NG911 unanswered. Instead, the recent notice once again defers to undefined future guidance. Over a year later, states still await guidance on how they can spend the lion's share of their leftovers, and the NTIA likely won’t issue its guidance any day soon.
There is little apparent reason for hesitation—emergency network upgrades check all the NTIA’s preferred boxes. Assistant Secretary Arielle Roth made clear what the NTIA prefers: BEAD funds should be spent on one-time projects with clear, measurable value for consumers. NG911 offers exactly that and is a popular ask. Commentators requested it during an NTIA forum, Congress members support it, and even NTIA Assistant Secretary Arielle Roth has expressed a desire for public safety communications upgrades generally, even if she has not explicitly endorsed using leftover BEAD funding for that purpose. The NTIA would do right to approve BEAD funds for NG911 use.
Antiquated emergency call center technology is failing Americans every day. The NTIA freed up enough cash in the BEAD budget to solve the problem and has the authority to do so. Not every state will use its leftovers for NG911—not every state needs the help. But putting the option on the table gives states the chance to turn saved money into lifesaving upgrades.
Nate Karren is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, follow us on X @ConsumerPal. This Expert Opinion is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.
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