Groups urge NTIA’s Davidson to adhere to preference for FTTP in BEAD subsidies

America’s adversarial Pinata telecom policy is heating up. Three telecom trade groups urged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to resist calls for alternative technologies and maintain a long term focus that prioritizes grant funding of fiber to the premises (FTTP) advanced telecommunications infrastructure in its Broadband Access, Equity, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The organizations also called on the NTIA “to establish metrics going forward to track whether States and Territories have fulfilled their responsibilities to connect all eligible locations to high-performance broadband service and maximize all-fiber builds, the critical communications infrastructure for the 21st Century.”

While the groups didn’t specifically mention fixed wireless access (FWA) as an alternative to FTTP, their joint letter is clearly intended to head off arguments by FWA providers that they can get more locations connected faster and cheaper than constructing FTTP. Another FTTP alternative is extending coaxial cable plant that comprises the majority of the delivery infrastructure used by cable companies, the dominant providers of landline IP telecom.

“Too often, as federal broadband funding programs have moved from concept to implementation, there has been a tendency to seek to support broadband infrastructure that is ‘just good enough’ for the moment,” the NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, the Fiber Broadband Association and ACA Connects–America’s Communications Association wrote the NTIA’s Alan Davidson in a February 2, 2024 letter.

“Under these prior programs, initial lofty goals of giving every American robust and affordable connectivity that will last for generations have given way to delivering the bare minimum to satisfy user demands here and now – leaving consumers and communities vexed and resulting in the need to establish yet more programs to address the needs left unaddressed.”

The basis for the groups’ position is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) authorization allowing Davidson to develop technical criteria that prioritizes advanced telecommunications infrastructure eligible for BEAD funding based on throughput, reliability, and consistency in quality of service. The rationale as stated in the IIJA is to “ensure that the network built by the project can easily scale speeds over time to meet the evolving connectivity needs of households and businesses” and provide backhaul for wireless technologies and other advanced services. The NTIA in its Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the BEAD program specifically defined that as “end-to-end fiber-optic facilities to each end-user premises.”