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  "description": "Big Telecom, elected Democrats, someone else?",
  "path": "/whos-to-blame-for-bead-join-in-an-open-discussion/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-07-16T13:55:46.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "_take so long_",
    "_obsession with complex regulations_",
    "_BEAD program_",
    "_delighted_",
    "_drew criticism_",
    "_who reposted_",
    "_stripping extraneous policy_",
    "_article detailing BEAD’s failures_",
    "_run out of_",
    "_susceptible to lobbying_",
    "_a repeat_",
    "_far more detailed_",
    "_were worried_",
    "_detailed maps_",
    "_these maps_",
    "_arguing_",
    "_snarky in a Policyband post_",
    "_pointed out_",
    "_changes_",
    "_opposed_"
  ],
  "textContent": "Why did implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program _take so long_?\n\nFor **Ezra Klein** and **Derek Thompson** , authors of the book _Abundance_ and leaders of the movement by the same name, the answer is clear. Democrat’s _obsession with complex regulations_ and their desire to pack all of their policy priorities in a single piece of legislation–what the authors term “everything bagelism”–spelled doom for the _BEAD program_ from the start.\n\nKlein’s excoriation of the program’s complex, 14-step process on **Jon Stewart** ’s weekly show _delighted_ its host, and _drew criticism_ from former Biden administration officials. It also caught the attention of **Elon Musk** , _who reposted_ a clip of Klein’s critiques that was viewed over 28 million times on X. According to Klein and Thompson, BEAD would have been better served by _stripping extraneous policy_ requirements from the program and focusing on getting money out the door quickly.\n\n**Paul Glastris** and **Kainoa Lowman** disagree. In a 7,700 word _Washington Monthly_ _article detailing BEAD’s failures_, the authors claimed that the fault lies with telecommunications monopolies and their (mostly Republican) allies in Congress.\n\nIn their telling, Biden’s initial $100 billion broadband deployment proposal represented “an existential threat” to incumbent providers. To counter that threat, providers lobbied their allies in Congress to change Biden’s initial proposal that would have established a centralized, nationwide program administered by the federal government, to a decentralized one _run out of_ state broadband offices.\n\nThis change gave incumbent providers more sway over the future of the program, as a single state broadband office is significantly less powerful, and thus far more _susceptible to lobbying_, than the Federal government.\n\nThough consumer groups also initially supported the move, not wanting to see _a repeat_ of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the downside was that the divvying up of the money amongst the states would take much longer and require _far more detailed_ broadband maps than were available. Because Republicans _were worried_ about “overbuilding” incumbent networks, they insisted that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration create new, _detailed maps_ before distributing any funds. It was the creation of _these maps_, not extraneous regulations, that the authors claimed caused the BEAD slowdown.\n\n“Doing an entire regional network, you know, diagramming and all that, is easily 90 percent of the time,” **Sascha Meinrath** , a Penn State telecommunications professor who the authors quoted in their piece, said. “Having done many of these successfully, I can tell you that if that’s the case [that a state is struggling to comply with the everything-bagel requirements], they’re definitely doing it wrong.”\n\n###  _Sparked a broader debate about structuring broadband policy_\n\nWhatever one thinks of the _Washington Monthly_ piece, it has undoubtedly sparked a broader debate about how broadband policy should be structured. The Free State Foundation criticized the piece on Monday, with **Andrew Long** _arguing_ that Glastris and Lowman’s piece missed the point of the BEAD program.\n\n“What the authors willfully choose to ignore is that the stated goal of the [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act] was to subsidize the prohibitively high price tag to connect primarily rural locations still ‘unserved’ – not to use taxpayer dollars to compete with these existing, privately funded networks, which of course would disincentivize future investment,” Long said.\n\nBroadband Breakfast’s own **Ted Hearn** was also _snarky in a Policyband post_: “Left-leaning Washington Monthly just burned 7,700 words on a revisionist history of the failures of the $42.45 billion BEAD program under President Biden. Did Biden’s sainted NTIA leaders Alan Davidson or Evan Feinman skin a knee along the way? Of course not.”\n\nHearn _pointed out_ that the _Washington Monthly_ piece hardly touched on Commerce Secretary **Howard Lutnick** ’s _changes_ to the BEAD program, despite those changes aligning more closely with Biden’s original top-down approach. Hearn argued that since many Congressional Democrats _opposed_ Lutnick’s revisions, praising them would ”have been inconvenient for Glastris and Lowman.”\n\n**Christopher Mitchell** , Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, told _Broadband Breakfast_ that the state-administered BEAD program was working. He also criticized the influence that large telecommunication providers have on public policy.\n\n“The Trump Administration and other critics of transformational investment in rural regions refuse to reckon with the evidence that states made BEAD successful - they came in under budget with mostly fiber optic projects. It was working,” he said. “It is remarkable how policy conversations in Washington D.C. ignore the market reality that hundreds of millions of American families face - Internet access that is too expensive from monopolies that people mostly hate doing business with,” he continued. “Those monopolies use their power to twist the rules and the federal and state level to their advantage. These are not controversial statements outside the beltway.”",
  "title": "Who’s to Blame for BEAD? Join in an Open Discussion",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-11T03:26:13.403Z"
}