Pennsylvania Planning Fiber for 64% of BEAD Locations
North Dakota would get fiber to almost all of its relatively few locations.
WASHINGTON, August 22, 2025 – North Dakota is looking to get fiber to almost all of its relatively few eligible homes and businesses under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania would see 64 percent of its eligible locations served with fiber and 18 percent with satellite.
Among states that have released draft BEAD spending plans so far, Pennsylvania’s is less fiber-heavy. But Western states like Colorado have suggested they will lean more heavily on wireless technologies like satellite and fixed wireless.
Of Pennsylvania’s more than 127,000 eligible locations, Elon Musk’s SpaceX would serve 4,796 for more than $8 million in BEAD support and Amazon’s Kuiper Systems would serve 18,079 for more than $10 million. More than 81,000 homes and businesses would get fiber from several different providers, according to a draft of the state’s BEAD plan posted Friday.
The biggest winners in Pennsylvania were Comcast and Verizon, which are tentatively set to take home more than $228 million and $120 million respectively. Comcast is slated to serve more than 20,800 locations and Verizon is in line for more than 15,500.
Pennsylvania’s plan would also get fixed wireless to about 14 percent of its locations.
North Dakota has only 301 eligible locations
Of North Dakota’s 301 eligible locations, 279 will get fiber, according to a draft of the state’s final spending plan posted Friday. The remaining 22 are set to be served with cable. Despite the state’s challenging geography, it did not award any funding to satellite or fixed wireless providers.
North Dakota-based co-op BEK Communications is set to serve the 279 fiber locations, taking home $6.6 million in BEAD support. Midco is undertaking the cable project in exchange for $191,000 in funding. While those locations are all marked as being served by cable, the description of Midco’s project says it will deploy some fiber-to-the-premises.
North Dakota was allocated $130 million from the $42.45 billion BEAD program, leaving a surplus of more than $123 million. Pennsylvania is planning to spend more than $793 million of its $1.16 billion.
Drafts of the states’ plans will be up for public comment through August 29. They will submit the plans to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for approval, the final step before state broadband offices can start funding projects under BEAD.
The Trump administration issued new rules for the program in June, rescinding federal approval of three states’ spending plans and mandating a new round of bidding. The new policy eliminated an explicit preference for fiber and made it easier for other technologies like satellite to compete on the basis of deployment cost, where fiber is at a disadvantage.
'Priority' determines how much fiber
Exactly how much BEAD money gets shifted from fiber to satellite depends on how states classify priority broadband projects.
That determination, which gets applicants first dibs on a given area, was limited to fiber under the Biden administration, as officials determined only fiber met the statutory requirement to easily scale for future technology needs. The Trump administration asked states to make the call on an application-by-application basis, opening the door for fixed wireless and satellite projects to request the designation and, if they received it, compete on the basis of cost with fiber projects.
SpaceX has taken issue with draft BEAD spending plans posted by Virginia and Louisiana, urging the Commerce Department to reject them on the grounds that SpaceX should have been deemed priority in more places. States are required to meet with NTIA and go over their project selections before posting final plans, implying the agency generally approved of the states’ directions.
Pennsylvania said it took into account the slope and tree canopy in a given area when evaluating applications, similar to Virginia and Louisiana. The state posted data showing it did not classify SpaceX or Kuiper as priority in the places they won.
“Areas with steep, rugged, or extreme slopes were identified as higher risk, since surrounding terrain can block signals and reduce service quality,” the state wrote.
It added that “because dense vegetation can block or weaken signals, service areas with higher levels of canopy cover were identified as higher-risk and received closer review when determining priority broadband projects.”
Cost savings were frequently cited by the Trump administration as a motivation for changing the rules. While Pennsylvania would have more than $345 million left over, and North Dakota only plans to spend a fraction of its allocation on deployment, it’s not clear what will happen to its leftover cash. The Trump administration rescinded its approval for any non-deployment activities, including some already underway, and said guidance was forthcoming.
The Biden administration had cleared states to promote workforce development, broadband adoption, telehealth, and other things if they had BEAD cash remaining after securing a connection for each of their eligible homes and businesses. Not all states are optimistic they will still get to use any leftover money they have.
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