ACA Summit, Washington DC – ACA Connects President and CEO Grant Spellmeyer kicked off the industry group’s 30th annual summit by underscoring the top-of-mind issues pervading the broadband industry. Unsurprisingly, the allocation of federal funds was front and center.
First, ACA wants to make sure broadband funding is going where it’s supposed to be, as Spellmeyer noted the organization is “very concerned” about overbuilding using government support.
“That’s an existential threat to some of our members, if the private capital they have invested over the years is washed away by government money landing where it shouldn’t,” Spellmeyer said in a fireside chat with Cablefax Editorial Director Amy Maclean. “That’s going to be the biggest message we will carry forward.”
The biggest pot of broadband money comes from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) plans to dole out BEAD funding to states starting in July, but Spellmeyer expects state leaders won’t begin handing out that money to operators until 2024.
“Each governor is going to land with a pot of money and they’re going to undertake an approximately six-month process to sort out plans for what they want to do with that money,” Spellmeyer explained.
In the meantime, he said ACA members are working on the ground to ensure states are “documenting what’s being committed to” and that information makes it onto the FCC’s broadband map. The agency’s preliminary coverage map was released in November, and an updated version with newer availability data is due out this spring.
Getting the maps right is crucial, Spellmeyer went on to say, because there’s also the matter of how exactly BEAD money will be allocated among states. While there will likely be a few big winners like Texas and California, ACA’s focus is to make sure the NTIA’s distribution is “fair and equitable.”
“Each state was guaranteed a certain amount of money and there was a reason for that, which was good,” he said. “But you can also find yourself in a situation where some states will come up short and other states will have extra.”
Although BEAD funding is on the horizon, other federal broadband subsidies are at risk, as the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) will likely run out of money in early 2024. Spellmeyer noted there will be “a lot of moving parts” to keep an eye on for the future of the program.
“It’s a $6-8 billion dollar per year hole that Congress is going to need to fill in a time when Congress doesn’t want to spend money,” Spellmeyer said, adding he’s already broached the subject with several individual congressional members.