Fewer households, businesses will get high-speed internet under revamped federal plan

This article was originally published by Stateline.

LEFT HAND, W. Va. — The residents of Roane County, West Virginia, enjoy living among the rolling mountains and winding, two-lane roads. Situated between Charleston and Parkersburg, two of the state’s largest cities, the rural county is known for its small towns and historic buildings.

That’s how Sherry Husted, the director of the Roane County Public Libraries, described her native community as she worked last week at Geary Public Library in Left Hand, West Virginia. Each of the county’s three library branches has at least three public computers and free internet access, among other services.

These services are essential to residents living in Roane — where less than 32% of the county’s households, businesses and community buildings — have reliable internet connectivity, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map.

“We love our rural area,” Husted said. “But there’s always the catch. You love your rural area, but then access to things is always more limited there.”

Members of the library staff regularly help patrons fill out job applications and build resumes. They also help those who have never used a desktop computer before — many of the county’s residents rely on their cellular devices and spotty mobile service, Husted said. Most residents still use landline phones, she added.

And those with internet access at home are paying a steep price. Husted’s plan with Frontier, which includes fiber internet and a landline, comes to $170 a month.

“If you work from home, you need reliable internet,” she said. “Frontier does the best they can. But this is a very rural area, so the trees and terrain are constantly messing up the internet. And because of the demand on these older lines, your internet may not be reliable enough to host things like meetings or classes.”

Roane County is one of the areas federal officials hoped to support through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, or BEAD, a federal grant program meant to expand broadband access. The $42.45 billion initiative, created under the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, aimed to close the digital divide — with a focus on rural communities.

The Trump administration’s changes to the program, however, have disqualified hundreds of thousands of locations — including homes, businesses and community buildings — from receiving internet access. And the program’s new technology-neutral approach will also shift a large portion of the federal funds toward satellite internet companies, including Elon Musk’s Starlink, that cost less to build but have more uneven service than underground fiber optic cable.  That means households and businesses that were looking forward to reliable, high-speed internet will no longer get support from the BEAD program.

While some experts were initially skeptical about the program’s goals, every state utilized its allocated funds to develop plans to provide high-speed fiber internet to nearly every home and business in the country, said Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an anti-corporate advocacy group.

Most states are expected to get started on deployment projects in 2026. But the Trump administration’s changes have undermined the major investment for rural areas, Mitchell said.

“I think everyone should care about it — even though most people don’t live in rural America — because when we electrified the entire country, the entire economy grew,” Mitchell said. “We will all benefit from this when everyone has more options to share their knowledge, their gifts and their productivity in the economy.”

Even West Virginia, ranking last in internet connectivity, would have effectively achieved universal broadband under the state’s original proposal, according to an unreleased draft of the state’s plan obtained by The Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, a policy group. West Virginia has about 78% connectivity, the only state with less than 80%.

But under West Virginia’s updated final proposal, submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration earlier this month, tens of thousands of households and businesses will no longer have access to BEAD funding.

West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey said he is still optimistic about the rollout, telling reporters recently that some of the decrease in coverage was because of inaccurate information. Some areas had just a few homes, or addresses only had a barn on the property, he and an aide said.

“We’ve been trying to target all the available locations that are eligible,” the governor said Sept. 18 at a news conference at the West Virginia State Capitol. “It’s a pretty fulsome application, and so obviously there were some changes made to accommodate some of the responses from the administration. And in a positive way, they’re trying to save money.”

There are other changes: Internet providers  will no longer be required to provide a low-cost service option to residents to address affordability concerns. And under the “technology-neutral” approach, some locations will no longer be receiving fiber internet, which the federal government previously emphasized due to its speed and durability.

The new guidelines also remove provisions that encouraged states to work with companies and representatives from minority communities. Requirements related to labor, the environment and climate change also were cut.

West Virginia isn’t alone. Under the new rules, thousands of households, businesses and community buildings across the country will be disqualified from the federal government’s push to provide internet access to the areas that need itmost. And those locations that are still eligible for funding may not receive the best service available — or be able to afford it.

West Virginia has one of the country’s worst workforce participation rates. Internet access is key to changing that, said Bill Bissett, chairman of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council.

“We are hopeful that this new proposal will be supported because we need to get started on this development as soon as possible,” Bissett said. “Because the longer we wait, the less people will be connected because of increased costs in deployment and infrastructure.”

Following the required revisions, West Virginia fared well compared with other states, said Drew Garner, the director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute. But Garner said he expects frustration in other states.

“West Virginia, because it did a good job with its restructuring, is still going to have a lot of strong outcomes,” Garner said. “But across the country in some of these other states, I think there’s going to be a lot of frustration with these changes and the way it walked back from what was going to be a very promising outcome.”

BEAD Restructuring

In June, the Trump administration revised the rules of the BEAD program in what the U.S. Department of Commerce said was an effort to lessen regulatory burdens, reduce costs and streamline the process.

As of Sept. 18, 41 states had submitted their updated final proposals, according to a database from Connected Nation, a nonprofit that advocates for expanded broadband access.

In December 2022, when the FCC released its updated National Broadband Map, nearly 12 million locations across the country were in need of internet service. Over the years, that number has decreased because of private investments, continued deployment by existing internet providers and additional support from other federal programs.

States originally identified 4.86 million locations that would be eligible for getting internet connectivity through BEAD funds. But that number is projected to fall to 4.19 million locations following revisions initiated by the Trump administration, according to an analysis from Broadband Expanded, a project from the New York Law School.

West Virginia was originally slated to deploy broadband to approximately 110,000 locations. Now, 73,560 of those locations will receive BEAD funding, according to the state’s new proposal. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Nebraska and Rhode Island could see more than half of the locations in their state disqualified from the program.

But some of those locations may still be in need of internet, said Garner, of the Benton Institute.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, directed states to remove certain locations from the BEAD program because they’d acquired internet access from another source.

But, in an effort to save taxpayer money, states also had the option to say they were “financially incapable” of serving a location.

“One of the changes the administration made to the BEAD program is that states and the NTIA now have a way to simply say that these locations are just too expensive,” Garner said. “They can say, ‘It is just going to cost too much, so now we’re going to say they’re ineligible.’”

The BEAD program’s new technology-neutral approach poses another challenge. The original program favored fiber because of its speed, reliability and ability to reach remote locations. But some argue that other technologies would be cheaper.

This change has opened the door for satellite internet providers, including Elon Musk’s Starlink, to receive money from the program. Starlink could be awarded approximately $10 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In West Virginia, Starlink will serve more than 4,100 locations, according to the governor’s office.

“Based on the technology and based on all the evidence we have, some of these technologies — unlicensed fixed wireless especially — are not really a reliable internet service that’s going to meet the needs of a 21st century household,” Garner said.

Rural Advocates Speak Up

In Nebraska, more than half of the counties in the state have signed onto letters to federal officials objecting to the changes, including the disqualification of nearly half the state’s eligible locations.

“It’s very frustrating. We have all these holes in our county, and BEAD was going to bring service to those areas,” Milford County Commissioner Misty Ahmic told the Nebraska Examiner.

Critics in Pennsylvania have said directing funds toward satellite companies is “shortsighted.” Satellite companies Starlink and Project Kuiper, an Amazon subsidiary, were awarded a combined $19.2 million to expand internet access in Pennsylvania.

And in Oklahoma, critics noticed the updated plan would not be using $225 million of the state’s allocated BEAD funds.

The state’s head broadband official said the new proposal would still serve everyone, but critics told the Oklahoma Voice that it would be wrong to send back any federal money while people across the state continue to struggle with internet access.

Originally, states were allowed to use these leftover funds to pay for things other than broadband deployment, such as West Virginia’s plans to improve cellular service and streamline the permitting process for broadband projects. But the federal telecommunications agency has not released guidance on how the leftover funds are to be used under the restructured program.

“There’s a lot of fear right now that NTIA may try to call that money back, which would be a big shame,” Garner said. “That leftover money is the state’s, according to the law. And these ancillary funds would play a huge role to support the BEAD program.”

Affordability also will be a barrier for some households. States are no longer required to provide a low-cost service option for low-income households under the changes. And the federal Affordable Connectivity Program ended last year without additional funding from Congress.

Morrisey said his administration is being aggressive, collaborating with the Trump administration to get internet access to eligible areas.

“I applaud the Trump administration for working with us, but once again, I am not going to do a victory lap until we actually get this all done,” the governor said.

Providing internet to every person in West Virginia was always a lofty goal, said Husted, the Roane County Public Library director.  Other initiatives have promised to connect rural residents over the years, Husted said, and she remains skeptical about this outcome.

“In rural areas, you’re going to need to plan for things, and sometimes that puts us at a disadvantage compared to the cities,” Husted said. “With the internet or with other supplies, sometimes we have to decide what is more important to us.”