TAMPA, Fla. — The Trump administration has released new rules for distributing $42.5 billion in U.S. rural broadband funding, easing restrictions on Starlink and other satellite providers competing for support under the Biden-era program.
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said June 6 it will now apply a technology-neutral approach in awarding subgrants under BEAD, or Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment.
Congress created the program in 2021 with a focus on fiber to help close the country’s digital divide.
Announcing a review of BEAD in March, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick blamed “woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations” for the program not yet connecting any users.
Armand Musey, a space industry analyst and founder of advisory firm Summit Ridge Group, said the tech-neutrality reform provision should help SpaceX’s Starlink, the satellite operator with the most to gain.
“However, it’s not clear how eagerly it will be embraced at the state and local level,” he added, “where there is often a bias towards job creation, where fiber has more to offer.”
NTIA’s announcement came a day after a public spat between President Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, which included threats to cancel the company’s government contracts not long after he ended a formal cost-cutting advisory role in the administration.
Rural grants take two
SpaceX was provisionally awarded nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies toward the end of the first Trump administration in 2020, under a separate program called the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), managed by the Federal Communications Commission.
However, the FCC said in 2022 that SpaceX failed to demonstrate how it would meet RDOF requirements, and upheld the denial in 2023 after an appeal.
In November, shortly after Trump nominated him to lead the agency, Reuters cited FCC chair Brendan Carr saying he did not expect the grant to be reinstated, despite previously criticizing the rejection.
In addition to embracing technology neutrality, the new BEAD rules aim to streamline environmental reviews, remove workforce mandates and other regulatory barriers.
