Broadband Affordability and the BEAD Program: Analysis and Policy

This policy brief seeks to support states in their assessment and monitoring of low-cost services offered by BEAD grantees. The brief proposes concrete affordability benchmarks and provides evidence-based recommendations to help strike the appropriate balance between service affordability and the long-term sustainability of BEAD recipients. The evidence reveals that achieving BEAD’s objective of facilitating access to reliable and affordable high-speed broadband represents a complex challenge. Our findings confirm that, in BEAD-eligible areas, market incentives alone are insufficient to deliver either adequate speeds at affordable prices or affordable services at adequate speeds. The evidence further points to a diversity of baseline conditions across states, suggesting the need for different criteria in the evaluation of BEAD funding proposals as well as different monitoring and evaluation tools. Put differently, while all states are poised to benefit from BEAD investments, the nature of these benefits varies considerably depending on baseline conditions. These variations underscore the importance of state-specific program design that addresses local market conditions rather than applying uniform national standards across diverse geographic and economic contexts.