WISPA Mostly Happy as Tentative BEAD Results Come In

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2025 – Now that states have completed bidding and released tentative grant winners under new Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program rules, the trade group for small and wireless ISPs is mostly happy with how things have shaken out.

The Trump administration introduced new rules for the $42.45 billion program in June, ending a categorical preference for fiber and making it easier for wireless and satellite providers to compete on the basis of deployment cost. States also had to give fixed wireless providers using unlicensed spectrum the chance to verify their coverage – and thus protect their service areas from a subsidized competitor – before holding an additional bidding round under the new rules.

“I do count the whole thing as a win,” WISPA CEO David Zumwalt said in a video the group posted Tuesday. “I wish it could have happened sooner, but I’m glad to see NTIA returning the BEAD program to alignment with the underlying IIJA.”

Steven Schwerbel, the group’s head of state advocacy, agreed that overall the group’s members benefited. He said in an interview last week the tight deadlines that came with the new rules did prove to be a challenge, though.

The unlicensed fixed wireless (ULFW) verification process was effectively on a two-week timeline. ULFW providers in each state that reported coverage to the Federal Communications Commission had one week to tell state broadband offices they would submit evidence their coverage met minimum BEAD standards and could mitigate interference. ISPs then had another week to submit that evidence. States would then review and decide whether the locations at issue would be removed from the BEAD eligibility map.

Although the reduction in eligible locations wasn’t always as pronounced as it might have been as a result of the change, Schwerbel said overall WISPA was happy with it.

“It was a substantial amount of locations that were removed. I think overall, across the 50 states, we were happy with the number of locations that were removed,” he said, but didn’t specify the exact number.

Still, he said there were about half a dozen states in which no locations at all were taken off the map as a result of the process. Some states simply had very few areas where ULFW providers had claimed service to the FCC, but Schwerbel said in some cases the information requested was too onerous or the state’s standards too exacting for small providers to reasonably participate. 

The group has been vocal about states where it’s taken issue with the process.

He also said some wireless providers didn’t have the staff resources to both participate in the ULFW verification process and apply for BEAD funding (either for fiber or fixed wireless projects), and had to choose one or the other.

“It was a hard needle to thread for many of our members,” he said. “We had members who focused more on applying for the benefit of the bargain round and sacrificed that defense opportunity, and we had members who pursued more strongly that defense opportunity.” 

Fiber is still taking the lion's share of locations

After 46 states have reported their tentative BEAD bidding results – which have not yet been officially approved by the Commerce Department – fiber is still taking the lion’s share of locations, 67 percent, and the large majority of funding. Satellite broadband from Amazon and SpaceX would cover another 20 percent, and fixed wireless is at about 10 percent. That includes community anchor institutions, which are built out to with BEAD funds after every eligible home and business is accounted for and are mostly getting wireline broadband.

Schwerbel said it was tough to say whether fixed wireless was taking a bigger share than it might have under the Biden rules, although some members that were previously only bidding with fiber did submit some successful fixed wireless bids. 

“Even within the good choices that NTIA made to open it up, there were some really significant structural hurdles to those smallest providers being able to go after it aggressively,” he said.

Some local and regional providers have been able to be successful though, in multiple cases by forming consortiums and working together. The majority of BEAD locations are in line to be served by someone other than one of the major national ISPs.

Concern from WISPA about LEO eating into fixed wireless

Schwerbel said he was concerned that the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers were eating into fixed wireless’s share in some of the areas not getting fiber. There’s a general desire among state broadband offices to lay fiber where they can, but in places where fiber would be too expensive under the Trump administration’s cost cutting mandate, Amazon and SpaceX are able to submit very cheap bids.

So far 15 states awarded no fixed wireless projects at all. Some of those are small eastern states that were able to submit entirely wireline plans, but satellite did well in others, nabbing nearly half of South Carolina’s eligible locations. Colorado and Nevada, both large western states, went almost entirely with satellite for their non-fiber areas.

“I am concerned about the ways LEO has seemed to balkanize awards that I think might have been better as fixed wireless,” he said. “I think there’s just a greater degree of certainty around some of the terrestrial offerings right now, and in the near future.”