NTIA Listening Session on Non-Deployment Set for Feb. 11
The agency will take input to inform its 'future planning and policy development' around uses for the funds.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2026 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will take input on how to spend about $21 billion in broadband funding next month.
On Wednesday Feb. 11, the agency will hold a virtual listening session on ‘non-deployment’ spending under its Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
Nearly half of the program’s $42.45 billion in funding won’t be used for infrastructure deployment, partly because the Trump administration updated the program’s rules to focus on cost cutting. NTIA rescinded approval for any other spending when it made its rule changes in June 2025, leaving the future of the non-deployment funding uncertain.
The virtual session “will gather input from stakeholders to inform NTIA's future planning and policy development regarding the use of these ‘nondeployment’ funds,” the agency said in a release. The session will run from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
NTIA administrator Arielle Roth has suggested she would support allocating some of the funds to streamlining state and local permitting processes. Joanne Hovis, president of consulting firm CTC Technology & Energy, said on a recent Fiber Broadband Association webinar she thought it was “almost certain” that at least some of the non-deployment funding would be available for that purpose.
In an executive order signed last month, President Donald Trump directed NTIA to produce a notice telling states they would be ineligible for non-deployment funding if they had “onerous” law on AI companies. That notice is due in March.
State broadband offices had been planning to use the cash on programs to boost broadband adoption, workforce development, and other things, and are interested in retaining access to the money.
Broadband industry groups have supported a bill that would allow states to spend the money largely on more infrastructure deployment. That would include wholesale fiber lines, mobile wireless infrastructure, and submarine cables and landing stations, among other things. States would have to hold another round of bidding for each of those.
The bill, called the SUCCESS for BEAD Act, would also allow states to fund workforce development programs, another common Biden-era plan, and efforts to improve mapping or improve permitting processes.
Member discussion