NTIA: BEAD Winners Can Continue to Receive Opex Subsidies for Existing Networks

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2025 – Participants in the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program won’t have to forego their existing federal subsidies in non-BEAD areas, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Rural broadband providers have expressed concerns over the newly announced plan to prevent BEAD winners from taking operational subsidies to support their deployment projects in the future.

In response to an inquiry about those concerns, a spokesperson for Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration gave the following statement to Broadband Breakfast Tuesday evening:

“As Administrator Roth made clear in her remarks, BEAD subgrantees must certify that they will not rely on speculative or uncertain future subsidies to serve their BEAD project areas. This requirement applies only to BEAD-funded projects and does not affect existing subsidies in non-BEAD areas to which a provider is already entitled. This is essential to protect the program, since a subgrantee that depends on hypothetical funding to fulfill its BEAD obligations is, by definition, exposing the program to default risk.” 

Clarification sought by rural broadband advocates

The clarification was among the things rural broadband advocates at the Community Broadband Action Network had asked for. The group said some member ISPs that receive subsidies from the Federal Communications Commission were nervous that accepting BEAD money for network expansion would mean losing current funding their existing networks rely on.

Still, CBAN and NTCA, a trade group that represents rural broadband providers, have said many BEAD projects themselves would likely need some kind of operational support over the long term. The program targets hard-to-reach areas that don’t yet have adequate broadband, and programs like the FCC’s Enhanced ACAM subsidy are designed to keep networks afloat in places where subscribers are too sparse to fully cover the cost of operating a network.

NTIA administrator Arielle Roth said last week in a speech at the Hudson Institute that the prohibition was an effort to reduce the likelihood that BEAD awardees would default in the future and avoid “another cycle of dependency.”

“If a provider expects to come back to the government for more money later, that’s a flashing warning sign that they are at a heightened risk of default,” she said. “Congress envisioned ‘future-proof’ networks that would stand on their own, not require permanent federal subsidies or future bailouts.”

For CBAN, there’s almost no getting around the poor economics of serving remote areas, especially for fiber providers. 

“Providing broadband to a ranch 50 miles from the nearest town isn't about ‘dependency’ – it's about recognizing economic reality,” the group said in a release Tuesday. “The cost of maintaining that connection will always exceed the revenue from one or two subscribers. That's not a failure of the provider; it's the inherent economics of rural infrastructure.”

NTIA has not yet approved tentative BEAD winners selected by state broadband offices, the last step before contracts can be signed and projects can get underway. Roth said the agency was on track to approve most plans by the end of the year.