Texas is shaping up to be a model of how efficient broadband deployment is our best tool for closing the digital divide.
In a recent letter to Senator Ted Cruz, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar, described how the state will complete universal broadband deployment and likely have “nearly $1 billion in funding” leftover from its Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program allocation. This success is due to Texas’s ongoing efforts to connect remote areas with a variety of technologies, including a pioneering low-earth-orbit satellite broadband program.
While Texas has taken matters into its own hands, Comptroller Hegar rightly points out that federal guidance for the $42 billion has hindered more efficient deployment. Yet despite these challenges, Texas estimates its BEAD deployments will cost between $9,000 and $11,000 per location—far lower than other states like Nevada, which plan to spend tens of thousands per location.
Texas’s success isn’t just good news for those gaining access to broadband. It’s also a critical opportunity to address the other major reason people remain offline: affordability. While less than 3 percent of Americans lack broadband because it isn’t available, 15 percent cite affordability as their primary barrier to connectivity.
Comptroller Hegar has proposed using excess BEAD funds for “complementary, common-sense, non-deployment initiatives.” Broadband affordability should be at the top of that list. Texas could use its surplus BEAD funds to launch an initiative similar to ITIF’s Blueprint for Broadband Affordability, providing low-income Texans with a $30-per-month broadband discount for more than three years—without requiring any additional federal or state funding. The money is there; it just needs to be put where the problems are.
But Texas is also right that the federal government is the biggest barrier to that effort. As Comptroller Hegar put it “the federal government should consider reforms that remove unnecessary red tape and social initiatives from the BEAD program.” Reforming BEAD to make it laser focused on closing the digital divide is urgent and essential for making the most of taxpayer dollars. The most pressing change is making BEAD technology neutral: the current program gives a preference to expensive fiber deployments even when other technologies could give consumers the same quality of broadband experience for a fraction of the cost. Texas has already proven that rapid and economically responsible deployment is possible. Now, the federal government should follow its lead—especially since Texas estimates its per-location cost could drop even further with updated federal guidance.
BEAD can close the digital divide by addressing both deployment and affordability gaps in the broadband ecosystem. But it needs a technology neutral approach to finish universal deployment efficiently so that leftover funds can help with universal affordability.
