No More Broadband Delays as State Legislators Urge DC to 'Get Out of the Way'

Any changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment should be optional rather than mandatory, a group of 115 state legislators from 28 states said in a letter on Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. It comes after BEAD recently lost its top director, who departed with a scathing letter alleging an impending shift in funding toward Elon Musk's satellite internet company, Starlink. Starlink could receive $10 billion to $20 billion of BEAD -- up from the $4.1 billion it was expected to get under the old rules --according to a report last month from The Wall Street Journal. "The Feds broke it and the states fixed it, and the Feds are preparing to break it again," Missouri State Representative Louis Riggs, a Republican, told CNET. "Why don't you just leave it up the states to decide what they want to do in terms of technology, instead of putting your thumb on the scale?" Locating local internet providers The $42.5 billion broadband infrastructure investment was passed ... Read full article.