State Offices React to Report Finding 57% Drop in BEAD-Eligible Locations

WASHINGTON, May 7, 2025 – The number of U.S. locations eligible for broadband funding through the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program has fallen 57% since 2023, according to a new report – a shift that, in many states, has sharply increased the amount of funding available per location. 

A few state officials interviewed this week mostly agreed with the trend.

The analysis, released Wednesday by the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School, is based on BEAD challenge process results from 46 states. The report argued that fewer eligible locations mean more funding per Broadband Serviceable Location (BSL) – a metric that reflects available budget, not actual deployment cost – and contends that many states now have double or triple the financial headroom than they expected in 2023.

While an official in North Dakota said the reports’ figures were “directionally correct,” a broadband data leader in Hawaii said the assumptions behind the report’s per-location estimates were oversimplified.

“Any commentary around per-location costs are completely unfounded,” said Garret Yoshimi, CIO at the University of Hawaiʻi, which oversees the state’s broadband program.  

Yoshimi confirmed that the state’s post-challenge BSL count had dropped to 7,267, largely due to new fiber-to-the-home installations that occurred after the mapping cutoff. 

The ACLP report estimated that Hawaii’s total number of unserved and underserved locations dropped from 12,742 in 2022 to 5,712 post-challenge– a reduction of more than 55% – which increased the state’s available per-location budget from $11,732 to $26,170.

While these per-location figures do not reflect actual deployment costs, they illustrate how shrinking target areas could give states more flexibility in how they deploy remaining dollars.

Yoshimi's comments confirmed the overall trend was correct, but he emphasized that Hawaii has not released internal cost estimates or actual deployment costs.

North Dakota emerged as a standout case in the ACLP analysis. The report estimated that the state’s available BEAD funding per location rose from $13,220 in 2022 to $73,538 post-challenge process – a more than fivefold increase. 

“It is directionally correct,” said Director of the North Dakota Broadband Office Brian Newby. “I think most states have woken up in May 2025 with significantly fewer locations than they had in May 2023.”

Newby said the ACLP report aligned closely with his office’s own estimates. According to the report, the total number of unserved and underserved locations in North Dakota dropped from 9,846 in December 2022 to 1,770 post-challenge — a reduction of more than 80%.

Newby had a couple of explanations.

“Most of this is from organic business expansion from carriers, I believe, and significant improvements to the map. That leaves us with less locations,” Newby said.

Newby said the North Dakota Broadband Office’s internal figures estimate fewer than 5,000 eligible locations remain, and that could drop to under 2,000 if BEAD’s administrator, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, accepted additional map corrections submitted by the state. 

“Of those 2,000, I suspect 10 percent or more are truly bogus,” he added, pointing to lingering issues in FCC mapping and a lack of tools to remove inaccurate entries during the challenge process.

“Our carriers and our office have been very vigorous about ensuring the FCC maps are correct, and that’s an ongoing odyssey, or course,” Newby said.

Other states projected to have a substantially lower number of BEAD-eligible locations in the ACLP report were Delaware and Connecticut.

According to ACLP, Delaware now has nearly $19,000 available per eligible location, a more than fourfold increase from its original allocation assumptions, while Connecticut's per-location figure jumped by 271%, rising from just over $5,000 in June 2024 to $19,190 post-challenge.

Rhode Island was the only state to see an increase in eligible locations following the BEAD challenge process, with the number rising from 2,895 in June 2022 to 3,176 post-challenge, according to the ACLP report.

The report argued that private investment, federally backed deployments, and more accurate mapping have significantly shrunk the nation’s pool of unserved and underserved locations targeted to be served by the BEAD program.