In testimony before the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee last week, United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick clarified the Administration’s plans for use of Congressionally appropriated Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funds remaining after allocation of funds for last-mile broadband deployments in unserved and underserved communities across America. Secretary Lutnick testified that all remaining funds will be spent and that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will work with states to identify which uses are eligible for BEAD funding, beyond those already specified in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA or Infrastructure Act).

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NTIA held listening sessions over the last week as well. As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Arielle Roth rightly noted, there is a “$21 billion question" about how remaining BEAD funds can and will be utilized. This blog explores uses for this remaining funding already specified in the Infrastructure Act, as well as other uses to which NTIA should direct funding, which will aid last-mile network deployments and make those deployments more commercially sustainable.

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There is a growing chorus of federal and state policymakers calling on the NTIA to allow states and territories to use their remaining BEAD funds to advance their broadband-related objectives. We have referred to this remaining funding—approximately $21 billion resulting from responsible stewardship of BEAD funds used for last-mile network deployments—as a Digital Opportunity Dividend. Since our blog, a bipartisan group of over 160 state legislators wrote a letter in support of using BEAD funds for a range of  broadband deployment-related activities, emphasizing that “non-deployment investments are not optional extras, they are central to BEAD’s mission.”

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In November 2025, we proposed that a significant portion of the remaining BEAD funds be set-aside for a rainy-day fund for last-mile connectivity projects in unserved areas; a prudent approach that accounts for factors such as inflation, identification of unserved and underserved locations not addressed by BEAD, defaulted Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) locations, potential future defaults, new builds in higher-cost rural areas, and possible cost increases. Even with such a fund, significant funding would remain to address other statutorily permitted uses, as well as uses the NTIA identifies as priorities for these funds.

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The Infrastructure Act, which created the BEAD program, states that Eligible Entities (the 50 states, five territories, and District of Columbia) can use remaining BEAD funds to: a) connect community anchor institutions; b) undertake data collection, broadband mapping, and planning; c) install internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure or provide reduced-cost broadband within multi-family residential buildings, with priority to unserved or lower-income buildings; d) promote broadband adoption, including programs to provide affordable internet-capable devices; and e) undertake any use determined necessary by the Assistant Secretary to facilitate the goals of the Program.

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Congress did not select these uses indiscriminately: each has proven economic benefits.  

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Statutorily Permitted Uses:

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Broadband Adoption

Broadband adoption, as defined by Congress, focuses on whether individuals subscribe to broadband internet access services and obtain daily access to the internet by leveraging, among other things, digital skills necessary to use the internet and a personal device. Increasing broadband adoption is a classic win-win—it empowers end users with better access to economic opportunities and it increases revenues and profits for internet service providers. In short, increasing broadband adoption makes BEAD-funded infrastructure projects more commercially sustainable and more beneficial for communities. States like Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, and others recognized the benefits of increasing broadband adoption in their initial BEAD plans by detailing plans to use a portion of their remaining allocated funds to advance broadband adoption through partnerships with community anchor institutions and digital navigators to provide digital skills training and device programs. Last year, we published a report which provides detailed representative budgets for broadband adoption programs.

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Here are a few examples of the many benefits that flow from increased broadband adoption:

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• Economic Advancement: In a 2023 paper authored in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the National Skills Coalition found that workers in a job that requires just one digital skill can earn up to 23% more than workers in a job that requires no digital skills, and workers in jobs that require more than three digital skills can earn over 45% more than those working jobs requiring no digital skills. This pay increase is not only a financial boon for the workers and their families—it can also translate to increased economic activity.
• Health Savings: People with access to reliable, high-speed broadband and the digital skills to use it can take advantage of telehealth opportunities to improve their personal health outcomes and reduce the cost of care, which is critical for government-sponsored healthcare programs like Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Medicare, and Medicaid. A number of studies show that digital skills is one, if not the most, significant barrier to greater utilization of telehealth services. The health outcomes and cost savings we forgo as a result are significant:  
  
  • The VHA provided 32.5 million telehealth appointments to 2.4 million veterans, accounting for more than 40% of all veterans served by the VHA in 2024. This investment in telehealth reduced wait times by 11% for primary care and 7% for mental health appointments. It also saw a 36% reduction in emergency-related events. These improvements in the efficiency of healthcare delivery were achieved while saving the VHA over $1 billion in annual travel and overhead costs.
  • Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), which are groups of doctors, hospitals, and healthcare providers that offer coordinated care to Medicare patients, helped improve management of chronic illness while reducing costs by using telehealth in their systems. For example, the mean percentage of beneficiaries with adequately controlled high blood pressure increased from 77.8% to 79.5% while diabetes patients with poor management of their hemoglobin declined from 9.8% to 9.4%. In fact, ACOs effectively prevented nearly 96,000 hospitalizations, ultimately achieving better health outcomes while saving Medicare $2.4 billion in 2024.
  • Telehealth has led to a 67% reduction in emergency department visits for certain managed care. Diversion of non-urgent episodes from the emergency room provides better health outcomes for the Medicaid patient while resulting in 6% cost savings to Medicaid (roughly $242 per patient). A 2025 analysis found that high telehealth utilization was associated with Medicaid cost reductions of up to $181 million in the studied regions.
• Improved Education Outcomes: Students with broadband and digital skills have repeatedly demonstrated greater achievement in education. A 2025 study by SETDA, a nonprofit association representing U.S. state and territorial educational technology and digital learning leaders, found that students “on the wrong side of the digital divide exhibit GPAs approximately 0.4 points lower than their connected peers,” representing roughly 7 to 14 months of learning loss and an increased dropout rates. Moreover, students lacking home internet also have fewer digital skills, which often results in lower college admission scores that also lead to lower chances of completing post-secondary educational opportunities. While these outcomes are negative for the individual student affected, they are also associated with a 4% to 6% decrease in future annual income: demonstrating that a lack of investment in students’ digital skills is also harmful for our economy, contributing to a national GDP loss of $22 billion to $33 billion annually.  
• Transition to Online Activities: Moving services that were once done in-person to online can represent large savings in terms of time and costs. For example, utilizing Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) services online, as opposed to going to the DMV office, can dramatically reduce wait times for customers by as much as 60-70% and promote more efficient processing of transactions. Online banking represents another opportunity for reduced time consumers spend, while also improving the cost of delivering services. By lowering per transaction costs and other costs, banks and other financial institutions can offer consumers better interest rates, reduced fees, and more convenience, as well as expanding the opportunity for the unbanked to access the more formal banking system.

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These are just a few areas where increasing broadband adoption through digital skills training have demonstrated benefits to individuals as well as our economy and broader society. As the bipartisan group of lawmakers responsible for the Infrastructure Act understood, allowing states the flexibility to use their BEAD funds to advance digital skills has the potential to drive economic opportunities on both the micro and macro scales.

Investing In Multi-Dwelling Unit Access

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Quite a few states have indicated that they intend to use a portion of their remaining BEAD funds to extend connectivity into multi-dwelling units (MDU) lacking inside wiring needed for high-speed access to the internet, another statutory use. Maine plans to partner with its state housing authority to enable Wi-Fi capacity and digital training in the state’s affordable housing properties. Similarly, through its MDU Community Connect Program, Tennessee plans to bring approximately 32,000 residential units online. With approximately 20-25% of the digital divide concentrated in affordable MDUs, BEAD funds represent a tangible source of funding close these gaps. Granting states the flexibility to close the digital divide in these MDUs would allow them to address this persistent barrier which presents a challenge similar to those presented in rural areas.

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Investing in Connectivity for Community Anchor Institutions

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For purposes of the BEAD program, community anchor institutions include schools, libraries, health clinics, health centers, hospitals or other medical providers, public safety entities, institutions of higher education, public housing organizations, and community support organizations that facilitate “greater use of broadband service by vulnerable populations, including low income individuals, unemployed individuals, and aged individuals” (47 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1)(E)). The importance of bringing connectivity to these entities is not simply to connect the institution itself: these entities are key touch points for community residents (as the name implies), especially amongst populations where digital skills are desperately needed. For example, connecting a library means that librarians can offer digital skills classes in their space, a critical service that many connected libraries provide for their communities and has proven benefits. A Pew survey found that 47% of patrons 16 and older agree that libraries provide a “trusted space” for learning about new technologies and 37% agree that they can help “a lot” to decide what information they can trust. Leveraging these community resources to advance digital skills also can help older adults avoid scams and frauds, which according to the FTC resulted in a financial loss of over $12.5 billion in 2024 alone. Universities, community colleges, and secondary schools are helping in this regard as well, further demonstrating the value of promoting full connectivity amongst the anchor institutions that Congress identified.

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NTIA-Designated Uses

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Beyond the IIJA’s specifically enumerated statutory uses, NTIA is authorized to designate additional uses of BEAD funds that “facilitate the goals of the [BEAD] program.” Three areas for which NTIA should authorize BEAD funding are workforce development, permitting reform and other forms of regulatory streamlining, and network resiliency. The United States faces a dual-pronged deployment problem: we have too few qualified workers available to build and maintain networks and also too many regulations and rules that delay and, in some case, prevent network deployment altogether. Many states (like Louisiana) have already considered how to creatively address their lack of qualified workers and remove legal red tape stalling deployments with their remaining BEAD funds.

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Workforce Development. Louisiana intends to fund the Louisiana Technical and Community College System (LCTCS) for workforce development to support the upcoming statewide broadband infrastructure construction, while also advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives in the state. Washington plans to use a portion of its remaining BEAD funds to promote “on-the-job workforce development” including cybersecurity and closing digital literacy and skills gaps. New Jersey intends to develop several successful workforce development programs and establish new, innovative initiatives to support labor, computer science education, and AI capabilities. The state plans to build on its existing competitive grant program for employer-provided training through their Department of Labor’s Incumbent Worker Training program, bolster regional hubs to support educators in offering more computer science classes and implementing standards in classrooms, and fund AI programming for certifications and apprenticeships in partnership with community colleges to further develop this flourishing sector. NTIA could play a role in facilitating the use of BEAD funds for workforce development by clarifying a framework for such programs to secure NTIA’s approval, including potential benchmarks that the states and NTIA would agree to that are tailored to the specifics of a state’s plan. This will help promote opportunities for those receiving the training, while allowing NTIA to ensure that the dollars spent produce quantifiable results like allowing funded program participants to secure highly skilled jobs.

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Streamlined Permitting. West Virginia intends to use a portion of its BEAD funding to create a special initiative to streamline permitting, directly addressing a common source of construction delays. Michigan also outlined a plan to provide support across jurisdictions to implement permitting best practices, identify a permitting and deployment coordinator within their state broadband office, and increase capacity for utility marking with the state’s Utility Notification Center. Permitting reform represents another area where an NTIA framework for states seeking approval for advancing this work would be beneficial. NTIA could even consider providing states the authority to provide temporary funding for state permitting officers to help facilitate securing permits for BEAD projects, ensuring that shovels can get in the ground quickly. NTIA could also authorize funding to encourage efforts to streamline and harmonize permitting and other regulatory barriers at the local level and regional level within states.

Network Resiliency and NG911. Many states have identified the importance of using some of their non-deployment funding to add high performance, resilient, backbone fiber to rural areas for improved cellular services, maintain connectivity during disasters, and to provide a foundation for advanced computing such as AI. These uses fit squarely within the BEAD program’s objectives, which identified network reliability as one of the elements of broadband networks funded by BEAD (47 U.S.C. § 1701(1): “Access to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States”). NTIA could also grant states the flexibility to use their remaining BEAD funds to enhance Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG911) services. By permitting states to replace aging analog infrastructure with an Internet Protocol-based framework, BEAD funds would close the divide where rural communities lack the advanced emergency capabilities available in urban centers. Such a modernization would ensure more communities have access to a resilient, modern 9-1-1 network capable of handling text, video, and precise geolocation. NTIA has a substantial opportunity to secure these life-saving advancements alongside broader connectivity goals by allowing this as one of the permissible uses of remaining BEAD funds.

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NTIA will continue to play a role in approving the uses to which these funds can be put. As such, NTIA will still be able to ensure that these BEAD funds are being put to good use and are not being used in ways that divert resources and weaken efforts to reach unserved and underserved communities or distort the market, such as government funded broadband network overbuilds. Eligible Entities and NTIA will also be able to make certain that these federal funds are not wasted by retaining oversight of the entities selected to undertake the nondeployment uses.

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In sum, there are numerous ways in which NTIA and Eligible Entities can partner to fulfill the BEAD program’s statutory goals, which extend beyond deployment of last mile infrastructure. Through prudent stewardship of last-mile connectivity funding, NTIA has created a Digital Opportunity Dividend which can be used to push our digital economy forward. We should seize, not squander, that opportunity. The benefits are real and within reach.

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