The Trump administration has rescinded its final approval for Nevada to use its nearly half-billion-dollar broadband award, further delaying the state’s plan to achieve universal high-speed internet and speed up internet service for areas, including rural ones, plagued by slow connections.

Nevada was one of three states to have its proposal fully approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), unlocking the full amount that the federal government had designated for the state under the 2021 Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. 

The state had already selected more than 50,000 locations and provisionally awarded 19 providers to build out broadband infrastructure across the state, which ranks 20th in internet connectivity. In late April, Nevada broadband director Brian Mitchell said construction was set to start this summer — an enormous milestone for a program that had spent years in the bureaucratic approvals process.

Instead, the state’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology will need to scrap its list of subawardees and redo the bid selection process using different guidelines — further delaying the beginning of construction potentially into next year.

The Department of Commerce said the move was necessary to cut costs and eliminate needless regulations imposed by the Biden administration. First created by Congress in 2021, states have had to jump through a series of regulatory hoops to access awards, with construction yet to begin anywhere. 

But Nevada, Delaware and Louisiana have moved more quickly than their peers. While other states are still selecting providers, those three had already received approval and were set to begin construction.  

“President Trump promised to put an end to wasteful spending,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. “Thanks to his leadership, the American people will get the benefit of the bargain, with connectivity delivered around the country at a fraction of the cost of the original program.” 

The BEAD program — and Nevada’s proposal — had favored fiber-optic internet because it has no bandwidth capacity limit and is easily expandable once in place. But the new guidelines issued by the Trump administration Friday call for tech neutrality and require states to prioritize lower costs — giving satellite internet, which is cheaper but lower-performing, a likely bigger share of BEAD contracts.

Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet company, also stands to benefit from the new policy — a conflict that Democrats have repeatedly expressed concerns about.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), one of the authors of the law that created the BEAD program, said Friday that she was outraged by the Trump administration’s move and pledged to put a hold on all nominations for Commerce Department officials that deal with broadband policy — meaning she would object to any effort to approve a nominee through unanimous consent and force Republican leadership to use valuable floor time to hold those votes. 

Rosen, who has a computer programming background and has made broadband expansion one of her flagship issues, said she would maintain her hold until Nevada receives its BEAD funds.

“This decision will put Nevada’s broadband funding in jeopardy, and it’s a slap in the face to rural communities that need access to high-speed internet,” she said in a statement to The Nevada Independent.

BEAD history

Created to deliver reliable high-speed internet access across the country, especially in rural areas, the BEAD program has been criticized for its slow deployment pace. First created by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the lengthy bureaucratic process of submissions, reviews and approvals has dragged out the process of beginning broadband construction.

Nevada was one of just three states to receive federal approval for its final BEAD proposal, setting the state up to put the first shovels in the ground this summer. 

But Lutnick placed the program under administrative review in March, saying it had been burdened by regulation, technology favoritism and “woke mandates.”

While under review, federal dollars cannot be disbursed. In late April, Mitchell said that his office was in the process of negotiating and signing award agreements with each of the 19 service providers that the state chose for the broadband buildout, so the review had not affected the state’s timeline.

But under the new rules, Nevada has to return to an earlier selection phase — a delay that will push construction back and change the carefully constructed internet technology mix that OSIT had determined for the state — which would service more than 80 percent of locations through fiber.

Mitchell previously said that because Nevada’s unique geography necessitated a mix of technologies, his office had always pursued tech neutrality and believed that the Trump administration understood that.

Mitchell declined to comment Friday. OSIT is in communication with the NTIA about next steps, according to the governor’s office.

Instead of putting shovels in the ground, the state will instead need to re-do its bidding process for more than 50,000 locations identified for service. 

Under the Trump administration’s revised rules, OSIT must use a bidding process likely to favor satellite internet providers, which would seriously change Nevada’s plan and weaken outlooks for the fiber companies that had already received provisional awards.

States have 90 days to conduct their selection process with the new criteria and submit a new final proposal, at which point the NTIA will then have 90 days to complete its review.

Under that timeline, Nevada may not receive final approval — which, up until yesterday, it already had — until December.

Broadband groups panned the decision as detrimental to rural Americans and global competitiveness. Drew Garner, the director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, said that favoring satellite over fiber will cement the digital divide that has left rural America behind.

“Under Secretary Lutnick, America is getting cheap, unreliable networks,” Garner said. “That’s the definition of penny-wise, pound-foolish.”