- Broadband providers in Maine and Hawaii are choosing LEO due to challenging terrain
- More than two-thirds of eligible BEAD locations will be served by fiber, according to Connected Nation
- Amazon Kuiper is the second-most-common provider, even though it does not yet have a commercial satellite network
After all the hand-wringing about the revisions to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program under the Trump administration, it looks like about 67.1% of eligible locations will get fiber, while 20.5% will receive low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite connections. The remaining locations will receive fixed wireless access (10%) and coaxial cable (2.4%).
These figures come from the Connected Nation website, which is tracking all the BEAD proposals. Currently, it has data for 51 final proposals out of 56, and its data shows the allocations of 3.36 million locations out of a presumed 4.2 million.
Many people in the fiber industry have been disappointed that so many BEAD grants have gone to LEO. But the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) notes that there has been a lot of private investment in fiber over the four years since the BEAD program began. According to the FBA, the fiber industry addressed 11 million of the 15.2 million unserved and underserved locations that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act intended to connect, leaving only about 4.2 million BEAD locations.
Now, 20.5% of those final BEAD locations will go to the satellite operators SpaceX and Amazon Kuiper.
It’s interesting that Kuiper won such a large percentage, given that it doesn’t even have a commercial satellite network, yet. But the BEAD rules require that a provider must offer service within four years of winning a BEAD grant.
BEAD in Hawaii and Maine
During a recent Ookla webinar, broadband professionals from the states of Hawaii and Maine talked about the use of LEO in their states.
David Bresnahan, senior manager for Grants and Programs at the Maine Connectivity Authority, noted that the state created its “Working Internet ASAP” program in early 2024 to help residents obtain broadband service while the BEAD program was gearing up.
The program gave free Starlink kits and installation to around 8,800 households in Maine that had no broadband service. The state has lots of little islands that are difficult to reach with fiber, and it also has mountains and other sparsely populated locations.
Maine’s BEAD proposal has about 14.9% of locations going to LEO — about 3,500 homes.
“The plan is to integrate the current, kind of back-end infrastructure we have for our satellite program right now, and flush that into the BEAD program,” said Bresnahan.
In Hawaii, the state is making a concerted effort to connect as many locations as possible with fiber. Its BEAD proposal calls for fiber to 5,700 homes and satellite to 1,300 homes. The state office is awarding those LEO locations to Amazon Kuiper.
Jaren Tengan, broadband coordinator for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said his group is not directly related to BEAD, but it works in coordination with Hawaii’s BEAD group.
“Most of the rural areas in Hawaii actually fall on Hawaiian Home Land, so we have the same problems as Maine,” said Tengan, referring to the fact that Hawaii has to deal with numerous islands. He also mentioned that Hawaii has lava rock, making it difficult to deploy underground fiber.
Armand Musey, president of Summit Ridge Group, also spoke on the same Ookla webinar, and he noted that satellite connectivity is limited in terms of capacity.
“The ability to cover a major metro area is just not there,” said Musey. “It's really something that's meant for, or only going to be viable, in areas where there isn't strong terrestrial coverage and where the density of usage is pretty small. And when you look specifically at something like the BEAD program, there are locations in Hawaii and in Maine and Alaska and other states where the cost of reaching an individual location is just crazy. Those are the ideal spots for satellite.”
Tree cover and bad weather
Satellite broadband requires a clear view from the ground to the satellite. It works well if the equipment can be placed on top of the house. Bresnahan said that based on experience in Maine, the StarLink basic kit needs 110 degrees of open sky to get a reliable connection throughout the day. But heavy tree cover or rain and snow storms can also be a problem.
Musey said that antenna technology has gotten better and so has processing power to ask the satellites to resend lost bits in the event of bad weather. “I think SpaceX is trying to get approval to increase power levels, which should also further mitigate problems in extremely bad weather,” he said.
He also noted that SpaceX uses the Ku band of spectrum, while Amazon Kuiper uses the slightly higher-frequency Ka band. And he said SpaceX’s spectrum has a little more resiliency in terms of bad weather. But he said both satellite operators will build redundancy into their constellations as they deploy more satellites.