- New Mexico wants $70 million to subsidize satellite broadband deployments, and Maine already stood up a similar program
- These satellite subsidies aren’t meant to replace fiber deployments, but BEAD program policy will likely undergo significant changes in the next year
- Some New Mexico locations won’t be able to get even satellite coverage
States are itching for action on broadband access. But as they wait for BEAD money to flow – and policy changes under Trump – New Mexico wants to take matters into its own hands.
New Mexico’s broadband office requested $70 million in state funds to help connect 95,000 locations with satellite broadband in the next two years. Starlink would be involved, but other satellite providers (like Amazon’s Project Kuiper) may also be in the mix once the state kicks off its RFP process, said Drew Lovelace, acting director for New Mexico’s broadband office.
The $70 million, if approved by the state legislature, would fund a voucher program for satellite broadband equipment, because the equipment is “a big barrier to entry” for many folks in rural New Mexico, Lovelace told Fierce. Starlink customers have to pay $600 for a terminal, and that excludes the monthly service cost of $120.
Hang on, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Maine, in an effort to connect its last batch of unserved locations, recently stood up a program to subsidize the cost of Starlink gear. Maine’s program notably wants to provide around 9,000 locations with affordable satellite service.
Equipment subsidies will make up “the bulk” of New Mexico’s program, said Lovelace. The state broadband office also wants to include a $30 monthly subsidy for low-income households to reduce their Starlink service fee.
New Mexico actually had 180,000 households on the now-defunct Affordable Connectivity Program, he said. “And that was only about a third to a fourth of eligible households.”
But state-funded satellite subsidies aren’t meant to replace BEAD-funded fiber broadband deployments. The satellite benefit would be a “short-term” deployment for locations that don’t have broadband of any kind, said Lovelace.
Once the BEAD program gets rolling in New Mexico, the state hopes to use its $675 million allocation to convert most of the subsidized locations to fiber. However, there will likely be a few thousand locations where delivering fiber isn’t feasible.
“We’re fifth in territory and 36th in population,” Lovelace said. “We’re going to need all the technologies, including satellite at the end of this. There are going to be some places that are just too remote or too hard to get to.”
Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts, said what New Mexico is proposing is “infinitely better than spending $100K+ per home for fiber, and waiting years to turn on services.”
In Madden’s view, there will soon be “pressure from all directions” to increase access to satellite broadband.
“The coverage is already available…so customers can turn the service on instantly if they can get a rebate or subsidy to pay for the expensive antenna,” he said.
If all goes according to plan, New Mexico’s broadband office expects to get the funds for its satellite broadband program in July 2025. By then, BEAD could look a whole lot different, as the Trump administration is likely to do away with the program’s fiber preference.
Clock is ticking for BEAD
Time is of the essence to ensure a “meaningful” broadband expansion program, said Steve Schwerbel, state advocacy manager at WISPA. That’s the message New Mexico is sending.
“New Mexicans cannot afford to sit on their thumbs waiting another five years for broadband to get to them,” Schwerbel said.
It could take even longer for BEAD-funded deployments to play out. Evan Feinman, a director with the NTIA, recently said BEAD “was always a 10-year program.”
NTIA this summer expanded its guidance on “alternative technologies,” which included low-earth orbit satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless access spectrum. States meanwhile have been working on identifying areas most appropriate for satellite service so they can best fund fiber and FWA builds, said Schwerbel.
“No serious policy discussion has clung to the ‘fiber only’ messaging we saw in the first couple of weeks of the BEAD rollout,” he told Fierce.
Even Louisiana, the first state to dole out BEAD grants, has discovered certain areas “simply are not going to receive bids” despite the “massive” incentives offered through BEAD, Schwerbel added.
Some well-known political figures have made their dislike for the current BEAD program pretty clear, including Senator Ted Cruz and future FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
In a post on X, Carr said that the “only” reason New Mexico is pursuing this satellite subsidy is because BEAD is “so far behind schedule.” He also thinks the state’s plan to later overbuild those locations with fiber is a waste of money.
“That’s like the government paying for you to have a driveway and then coming back a couple of years later and paying to build you a second driveway parallel to your existing one,” he said.
Satellite’s not perfect
There’s a lot of hype surrounding satellite broadband and whether it can adequately fill coverage gaps. Satellite may be faster and cheaper to build in rural areas, but constrained bandwidth capacity remains an inherent issue.
And some remote locations can’t even get access to a satellite signal. Lovelace said according to data Starlink shared with his office, there are about 200 locations in New Mexico that can’t get satellite coverage.
“They’re usually in a very deep ravine or valley,” he said. People living in those areas will “more than likely” have to wait for fiber or another technology.
