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Fibre won two-thirds of BEAD locations — satellite and fixed wireless took the rest

With all 56 BEAD final proposals now approved, the technology choices are clear: fibre took roughly two-thirds of funded locations, while satellite and…

By Priya Raman · · 5 min read

Close-up of hands using a fibre-optic splicer to join a strand of fibre cable during a rural broadband installation demonstration by Easton Utilities at a USDA Rural Development telecommunications event.
Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDAgov), via Wikimedia Commons · source
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  • Fibre won two-thirds of BEAD locations — satellite and fixed wireless took the rest

broadband Fibre won two-thirds of BEAD locations — satellite and fixed wireless took the rest

With all 56 BEAD final proposals now approved, the technology choices are clear: fibre took roughly two-thirds of funded locations, while satellite and fixed wireless split the rest — and the east-west divide is stark.

By Priya Raman · 23 Sep 2026 · 5 min read Share (function () { var btn = document.currentScript.previousElementSibling; if (!btn) return; var url = btn.getAttribute(“data-url”); btn.addEventListener(“click”, function () { if (navigator.share) { navigator.share({ url: url }).catch(function () {}); } else if (navigator.clipboard && navigator.clipboard.writeText) { navigator.clipboard.writeText(url).then(function () { var label = btn.textContent; btn.textContent = “Copied”; setTimeout(function () { btn.textContent = label; }, 2000); }).catch(function () { mailto(); }); } else { mailto(); } function mailto() { window.location.href = “mailto:?subject=” + encodeURIComponent(document.title) + “&body=” + encodeURIComponent(url); } }); })();

Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDAgov), via Wikimedia Commons · source With every one of the 56 state and territory BEAD final proposals now approved by the NTIA — the last rubber stamp landing on 25 August 2026 — the technology map of America’s $42.45 billion broadband programme is finally legible. And it tells a split story: fibre won, but nothing like as decisively as the programme’s original architects intended.

National trackers of the state proposals put fibre at roughly two-thirds of funded locations: 67.1% across 51 proposals in October 2025, according to the Connected Nation tracker, settling at about 63% in Light Reading’s year-end review. Low-Earth-orbit satellite took 20–23%, fixed wireless access 10–12%, and cable around 2%. An earlier New Street Research analysis of 25 states found a similar picture — 68% fibre, 18% satellite, 12% fixed wireless.

That is a long way from the original BEAD design, which treated fibre-to-the-home as the default and satellite as a last resort for the hardest-to-reach spots. The shift came in June 2025, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s restructuring scrapped the explicit fibre preference and ordered every state to re-run its bidding under technology-neutral, lowest-cost rules — the “Benefit of the Bargain” round. Fibre is still the preferred technology in most states, New Street’s Vikash Harlalka noted, “but its share is declining” as more results come in.

An east–west split

The state-by-state choices divide sharply along geography. Denser eastern states stayed fibre-heavy: Virginia put 81% of its roughly 130,000 eligible locations on fibre, and Louisiana committed 80% of its roughly 127,000 locations to fibre. In the mountain west, the maths flipped. Montana assigned about 65% of its 72,200 locations to satellite — split roughly between Amazon’s Kuiper and SpaceX’s Starlink — with only about 20% going to fibre. Colorado’s proposal gave 50% of locations to LEO satellite and 48% to fibre. Kansas awarded 50.83% of its broadband-serviceable locations to hybrid or fixed wireless providers, and New Mexico split its 43,274 locations 44% fibre, 40% fixed wireless and 16% satellite.

StateAward figureFibreFixed wirelessSatellite (LEO)BasisIllinois$831m68.1%23.6%8.1%Locations; NTIA-approved Aug 2026California$1.42bn52.9%20.1%27.0%Locations; NTIA-approved Jul 2026Texas(242,903 locations)50.6%22.3%27.1%LocationsWashington$849.9m of $1.23bn48.1%46.9%¹6.2%Share of investment; provisionalColorado$826.5m allocation48%2%50%Locations; proposedNew Mexico$433m of $675m44%40%16%Locations; proposedLouisiana$498.8m plan80%—~8%²Locations; revised planVirginia(~130,000 locations)81%—10%Locations; revised planMontana(72,200 locations)~20%~15%~65%Locations; reportedKansas——50.83%—Locations; reported

¹ 38.6% licensed terrestrial fixed wireless + 8.3% licensed by-rule + 0.6% unlicensed. ² Starlink won $7.7m for 10,000+ Louisiana locations.

Locations are not dollars

The location counts flatter satellite’s achievement, because fibre costs far more per home passed. Colorado is the clearest example: fibre won only 48% of locations but is set to receive 91% of the funding, while LEO satellite’s 50% of locations translates to just 8% of the money. Texas’s approved plan averages $5,178 in federal funding per location, with providers covering another $2,450 — a reminder of why the cheapest bids kept winning the re-bid rounds.

The two most recent NTIA approvals show how the final numbers moved even after states submitted. California’s approved plan covers 270,571 locations at $1.42 billion — down from a December proposal of $1.58 billion for 338,564 locations — with 52.9% on fibre, 27% on satellite and 20.1% on fixed wireless. Illinois, the last of the 56 to be approved, will spend $831 million connecting nearly 143,000 locations: 68.1% fibre, 23.6% fixed wireless and 8.1% satellite, a marked shift from its December draft, which had fibre at 74.8% and satellite at 15.1%. NTIA ordered states to revise their satellite awards after updated data shrank the pool of eligible locations.

Fixed wireless had its own banner result: in Washington, fixed wireless provider Inland Cellular LLC was the biggest dollar winner of any provider at $331,980,599 — more than double the next recipient — while Starlink took $43.4 million and Amazon Kuiper $9.3 million in the same state.

One caution: September 2025 analysis found 45 states’ recommended awards totalled about $15.2 billion against $32.8 billion in allocations — 46% — and those recommendations were still preliminary. The savings are real, but the final accounting awaits NTIA’s guidance on how states may spend what is left.

Sources

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