Report Shows High Levels of Private Provider Investment into BEAD

A recent study found that private internet providers are easily eclipsing the statutory matching requirements for funds in the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, showing a high level of fiscal and physical commitment in closing the digital divide.

The report Private Investment is Amplifying BEAD’s Public Broadband Dollars, from authors Alex Karras and Michael Santorelli at the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute (ACLP) at New York Law School, found that providers are contributing about $11.4 billion in matching funds toward BEAD-funded projects. This number represents more than 37 percent of total project costs, well above the requirement of 25 percent.

ACLP analyzed more than 6,500 BEAD projects across 54 states and territories for the report to quantify the level of private investment for the program. The report provides the first comprehensive look at the scale of private-sector capital being invested alongside BEAD funding.

BEAD encompasses a wide variety of providers (both national and local) as well as a variety of delivery mechanisms, from fiber to satellite to fixed wireless. Karras and Santorelli found that national providers account for more than $6 billion in matching commitments. Those commitments increase with provider scale, with established national providers contributing nearly 49 percent to their project costs, nearly double the statutory minimum.

The top five providers in investment under BEAD are Xfinity ($2.03 billion), AT&T ($1.51 billion), Starlink ($797 million), Brightspeed ($488 million), and Verizon ($384 million).

While the state-by-state matching varied greatly, from a high of nearly 85 percent in Delaware to a low of 10 percent in Alaska, Karras and Santorelli found that 51 states and territories have matching rates at or above the 25 percent threshold.

Congress allocated $42.5 billion to the BEAD program, but under the Trump administration’s new rules allowing flexibility in broadband deployment that includes satellite and fixed wireless, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that $21 billion will be left over after deployment funds are allocated.

Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (the department under which NTIA operates) said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on February 10 of this year that returning leftover funds to the Treasury “is not the plan,” primarily because the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that created BEAD requires unused money to go towards nondeployment programs such as workforce training, digital literacy, and telehealth.

NTIA hasn’t specified yet how states can use that leftover $21 billion. Some Democratic members of Congress penned a letter to Lutnick and NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth on June 11 asking for clarity on the issue, noting that Roth described the unused BEAD funds as taxpayer savings.

“The Department must now formalize this position in writing so that state broadband offices can plan responsibly and so that the ‘savings’ narrative does not continue to create confusion about program implementation,” they wrote. “Continued ambiguity slows deployment, undermines rural connectivity, and jeopardizes the core objectives of the BEAD Program.”

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance argued that the initial allocation made during the Biden administration was excessive and has advocated for unused money to be returned to the Treasury. That would require changes to the existing statute by Congress, which seems unlikely to happen.

A previous ACLP report put into real terms the Congress largesse with taxpayer money, pointing out last year that unserved or underserved locations had decreased by 57 percent across the United States since allocations for BEAD were first set in 2023. That analysis said the gains stemmed primarily from continued capital investment by providers to extend networks and grant-funded projects via American Rescue Plan Act and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.

The study released this month demonstrates that private investment continues to help close the digital divide, in this case above statutory requirements of a taxpayer-funded broadband program. The BEAD data show wide private-sector participation coast to coast and an industry committed to network expansion.