Partisan Positions on ACP Aired During Senate Hearing

Mr. Winfree, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, testified, as Sen. Cruz had indicated, that government subsidies of broadband service caused price increases. Mike Romano, executive vice president of NTCA, whose members came to town earlier in the week to talk to their congressional delegations (see separate story), said in a statement, "NTCA members have expressed significant hope for participation in the BEAD program, and they have been among the most active participants in other recent grant programs. [...]NTCA and its members have also expressed consistent concern about specific aspects of BEAD planning and potential implementation - including individual states' designing of service areas that are both too large to promote smaller provider participation and could undermine fiber proposals, the question of which areas qualify as high cost (or not) and other mapping issues, the heavy weight placed by some states on matching funds that larger providers can better afford to expend, and effective mandates for broadband rates that could lack any program subsidy to back them up. How these issues might ultimately affect participation will require a state-by-state and even area-by-area evaluation by individual providers, but it will be important to get these issues right - or else there is a risk that some of the smallest rural providers with the longest track record of success in rural broadband will find it difficult to participate in the BEAD program," Mr. Romano added.