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  "description": "The company was set to receive more than $90 million to serve 11,000 locations",
  "path": "/oregon-moves-forward-on-bead-contracts-but-astound-backs-out/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-23T16:21:50.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "Learn about America250 / Telecom150",
    "broadband office said",
    "in a statement",
    "in a letter",
    "walked away from",
    "looking to get fiber",
    "pulled out of",
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  "textContent": "WASHINGTON, June 23, 2026 – Oregon’s broadband office said Monday it was moving forward with most of its preliminary awards under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.\n\nOne big winner, Astound Broadband, is refusing nearly $90.7 million in funding to serve 11,000 homes and businesses. Those were mostly pure fiber builds, with about 3,000 locations covered by projects that combined fixed wireless and fiber.\n\nLearn about America250 / Telecom150\n\n\n                            Learn about America250 / Telecom150\n                        \n\nIn total, the state will have to re-award nearly 13,400 locations. The broadband office said it “had started a process” to do so but didn’t go into detail.\n\nThree local ISPs, including a municipally owned provider, also declined awards. They include Siuslaw broadband, QLife (the muni provider), and Hunter Communications. The private ISPs did not immediately responded to a request for comment.\n\nQLife said in a statement that a declined waiver and rising construction costs made it impractical for its project to move forward. The provider asked for a waiver of BEAD's match requirement that wasn't approved, meaning it would have had to put up $5.1 million toward its project.\n\n\"This decision was not made lightly,\" QLife executive director Liz Lance said in a letter to the broadband office. \"QLife invested substantial time and resources into developing a project designed to maximize broadband availability in Wasco County while responsibly managing public resources.\"\n\nAstound also walked away from about $165 million in BEAD funding in Texas. There, the company said it applied for a continuous fiber build across many areas and only won funding in some of them. It would be less economical to build the awarded areas separately, since they were isolated from Astound’s existing network, according to the company.\n\nA spokesperson said the same situation happened in Oregon. Astound applied for funding to build fiber across 25 project areas, but only won funding in 12.\n\n“As a result, there were significant cost increases due to the network infrastructure build not being contiguous — and the awarded areas were not close enough to Astound’s existing network to financially justify the build,” the spokesperson said in an email. “As we continue to expand Astound’s network, we appreciate the opportunity to participate in the process and remain committed to working with state and federal partners on broadband deployment efforts.”\n\nSixteen providers told the state they intended to accept their awards, Oregon’s broadband office said. Those include Comcast, SpaceX, and two electric cooperatives. One of the ISPs that rejected awards, Siuslaw, said it intended to accept others.\n\nThat paperwork hasn’t officially been signed yet, although the providers intend to move forward. Final award agreements have been sent to two providers, according to the state, and they all have to be signed by Sept. 18.\n\nOregon is looking to get fiber to about half of its roughly 105,000 BEAD locations. Unlike most states, it's preparing to spend most of its allocation under the $42.45 billion program.\n\nLow-Earth orbit satellite operator SpaceX had told broadband offices that it might be “untenable” for LEOs to participate in BEAD without exemptions from certain rules around performance testing and other things.\n\nThe Commerce Department publicly shot that down, but the company has since reached deals with multiple states. Amazon, the other LEO operator participating in BEAD, pulled out of Nebraska but is finalizing a deal in Texas.\n\nElectric co-ops have also voiced concerns, and in some cases declined BEAD funding, over a Commerce Department rule requiring them to submit to federal pole access regulations throughout any state they accept BEAD money. That rule was instituted in January, after companies had already bid.\n\nOregon has its own state-level rules for pole attachments which, unlike many other states and the federal rules, extends to co-ops. Under Commerce’s policy, that means co-ops in the state already have a regulatory system and don’t need to switch over to the FCC rules, which co-ops want to avoid.\n\n_Update: This story was updated to add comment from QLife._",
  "title": "Oregon Moves Forward on BEAD Contracts, But Astound Backs Out",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-07T21:48:22.832Z"
}