Podcasts
Dr. Nathan Smith, the Director of Economics and Policy for Connected Nation, joins Beyond the Cable to talk about the BEAD program’s future
By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
Questions are swirling around the future of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program since the administration of President Donald Trump has taken the helm.
On this episode of Beyond the Cable, Dr. Nathan Smith, the Director of Economics and Policy for Connected Nation, joins us to talk about the future of the BEAD program, which has been the subject of some criticism from Republicans.
Despite previous criticisms, Smith said he still believes the BEAD Program is “fairly safe.”
“With BEAD, it’s mainly going to benefit areas with heavily Republican constituencies,” he said. “It’s infrastructure money, which is not as controversial.”
Smith additionally noted that Trump advocated for a large infrastructure spending package in his first term.
Click here to listen to the full interview with Smith on Spotify.
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“It seems unlikely that BEAD is going to be retracted,” he said.
Smith said he is optimistic on the BEAD Program, considering that the program is already far along in the bureaucratic process.
“There’s been a lot of frustration that it took so long to actually connect anybody to broadband,” he said. “But that was kind of by design. You needed quite a bit of planning because they were trying to get to universal coverage.”
He said questions also remain unanswered, however.
“The reality is that although BEAD is prioritizing fiber, you can’t get that everywhere,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just not economic to build a fiber network.”
As a result, he said it could leave states falling back on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite.
“That’s an important space to watch,” he said.
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