New Hampshire Lawmakers Prefer Fiber from BEAD
The state would get fiber to two-thirds of its eligible BEAD locations.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2025 – New Hampshire’s Congressional delegation is not happy about the Trump administration's updated rules for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
“The administration has now removed discretion from state and local communities, instead requiring that BEAD funds be allocated solely to the lowest-cost projects – even if those projects deliver extremely low-quality internet service to rural areas,” the lawmakers, led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote in a Thursday letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The Trump administration handed down new rules for the program on June 6. Commerce eliminated a categorical preference for fiber and made it easier for applicants using satellite and fixed wireless to compete on the basis of deployment cost, where fiber is at a disadvantage.
Other lawmakers, mostly Democrats but some Republicans, voiced similar concerns earlier this summer, essentially worrying states would be blocked from funding fiber in places where they wanted to. Preliminary results show fiber is still getting the lion’s share of BEAD locations, more than two thirds, but that satellite is taking a bigger share than it was expected to under the Biden-era rules.
The four Democratic lawmakers urged the agency to “reverse the administration’s recent changes to the program immediately,” but states are now far into the process of switching gears and implementing the new rules.
Every state has already done their additional round of bidding under the new rules, and more than 30, including New Hampshire, have released their tentative grant winners. States are supposed to submit that document for approval, the final step before actually signing contracts and funding projects, by Sept. 4.
New Hampshire had relatively few eligible homes and businesses at 5,100, and about 67 percent of them would get fiber under the state’s draft spending plan. About 22 percent would be in line for satellite broadband, all from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and 11 percent would get fixed wireless.
The lawmakers didn’t name a specific technology, but said their constituents “may now be limited to slow, weather-dependent internet.”
The letter was also signed by fellow Democrats Sen. Maggie Hassan and Reps. Maggie Goodlander and Chris Pappas.
How many of a state’s eligible locations get shifted from fiber to satellite depends on how the broadband office classifies ‘priority broadband projects.’ Priority applicants get first choice of BEAD locations, even if a non-priority project is much cheaper.
By law, priority projects have to scale easily to meet future demands. The Biden administration had determined that only applied to fiber, while the Trump administration has asked states to make the call on an application-by-application basis.
In the draft of New Hampshire’s final BEAD plan, the state said it took into account an area’s terrain and tree-cover when evaluating applications. The state said its heavy foliage, mountains, and rough weather cut against satellite applicants in many areas.
Low-earth orbit “satellite systems require an unobstructed view of the sky, which is difficult to achieve in many parts of the state,” New Hampshire’s broadband office wrote. “The State took these limitations seriously in determining priority broadband projects.”
Other states have said they used similar methodologies. SpaceX has taken issue with this, asking NTIA to reject plans from at least Louisiana and Virginia, where it says it should have been treated with priority more often and thus won many more locations.
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