FSF's Long Warns of BEAD Program's 'Devilish Details'

The "cascading levels of responsibility built into" NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program "open multiple doors through which devilish details ... might slip and cause havoc," Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long wrote in a blog Monday. Long warned of potential rate regulation, a bias for fiber technology and "other elements of the Biden Broadband Plan" that weren't included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (see 2405310050). The "multitiered process" creates "numerous opportunities for motivated mischief-makers to inject their policy biases ... into the day-to-day administration" of BEAD, Long said. All 56 eligible states and territories have submitted initial BEAD proposals and received approval for volume I.