Virginia has received federal approval for its plan to connect about 133,000 residences, business and community buildings to high-speed internet service.
Virginia and 17 other states and territories may proceed with their final plans, according to a Tuesday news release from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office had previously announced that the commonwealth had proposed $613 million to connect those locations.
The federal announcement allows Virginia and the others to move forward with their plans under the Biden-era Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, or BEAD. The Trump administration had paused the program and required the states to rewrite their plans with an emphasis on saving money.
The new plan to provide internet access to mostly rural areas in the commonwealth will save taxpayers $200 million from the original proposal, Youngkin has said. The 18 proposals that NTIA approved Tuesday will save about $6 billion, according to the agency’s news release.
The approval also ends a side conflict initiated by onetime presidential confidante Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The original BEAD program prioritized fiber-optic broadband cable over wireless options including satellite. Trump’s Department of Commerce, which oversees the NTIA, rewrote the rules to put satellite service on an equal footing.
Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX that provides low earth orbit satellite broadband, did not submit any applications for BEAD funding during the Biden administration, but after the rule changes in early June, SpaceX became involved in the process. Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development filed its amended final proposal in August and recommended that Starlink serve 5,579 locations through a $3.3 million award. That figure includes 3,137 locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia, with an award of $1.6 million.
The Housing Department recommended that Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite system — rebranded last week as Amazon Leo — receive $4.5 million to reach 6,957 locations statewide. Unlike Starlink, Amazon had previously applied for funding before the rule changes, but the state had not made its final recommendation before Commerce rescinded applications. Under the revised plan, Amazon’s nascent low earth orbit service will receive about $970,000 to reach 1,132 locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
After Virginia filed its rewritten final proposal, SpaceX protested in a public comment, calling it “a massive waste of federal taxpayer money” and claiming that the state’s broadband office had treated SpaceX unfairly. Musk, who in early 2025 led Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, founded SpaceX in 2002. The company began launching its satellites in 2019.
The NTIA’s Tuesday announcement did not comment on the complaint.
“We are delivering the Benefit of the Bargain through the BEAD program that best serves the interests of the American people,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in the news release. “After stripping away burdensome rules and regulations and wasteful requirements, taxpayers will save billions in unnecessary costs while connecting those in need to high-speed broadband through the full spectrum of broadband technologies.”
His rule changes eliminated the program requirements for affordability and low-cost plans, and put on hold a determination on acceptable “non-deployment funding” while rescinding any such funding that states had preliminarily approved. Non-deployment funding is for programs that aren’t related to broadband expansion itself.
Other changes eliminated sections related to labor practices and about contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses, among other measures.
State officials still hope to receive the non-deployment funding. The $42.5 billion BEAD program had originally allocated $1.48 billion to the commonwealth. DHCD’s rewritten final proposal eliminated “red tape” that allowed for a 25% savings from the previous cost estimate of $815 million, according to Youngkin’s office. The final proposal needed $613 million to fund the deployment projects.
If Commerce allows it, Virginia could keep what’s left from the initial $1.48 billion allocation to craft programs that aren’t related to broadband expansion.
The Housing Department wants to focus those funds on identifying gaps in cellular coverage and working within public-private partnerships to fill those dead spots. Other priorities for non-deployment funds include identifying multidwelling units such as apartment buildings and duplexes that don’t have broadband availability for each residence, then extending connectivity to them.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., after hearing in August from state and county officials concerned about those funds, said he would push Lutnick on the issue.
State Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax County, chairs the Broadband Advisory Committee. She noted that non-deployment funds were part of the BEAD package that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law.
“It is not a one-size-fits-all state, and hopefully [the NTIA] will listen to our broadband office, understanding that they have kept their data clean and understand exactly what the needs are throughout the commonwealth,” she said.
BEAD followed the Biden administration’s pandemic-era American Recovery Plan Act in providing money for nationwide broadband deployment. Work continues on projects related to ARPA, which provided $750 million to Virginia, with a deadline of Dec. 31, 2026, to spend it all, lest the federal government keep the remainder.
Most of the BEAD funding is going to All Points Broadband, at $171.3 million for 19,801 connections, and Comcast, with $146.4 million for 24,343 locations. Those internet service providers led the way among about two dozen applicants statewide.
All Points’ only Southwest and Southside work would be in Pulaski County, where the state recommends it receive $1.1 million to connect 201 locations. All Points only began its Pulaski-related ARPA work in late September — County Administrator Jonathan Sweet said that the delay was largely due to delays in preparing utility poles to carry the extra load needed for fiber-optic cable.
Comcast, however, will use BEAD money to construct fiber lines throughout this part of the state, including 2,080 Montgomery County connections, 930 in Lynchburg and 405 in both Powhatan and Cumberland counties.
In Carroll County — which has been documented as Virginia’s least internet-connected locality — ZiTel will serve 5,141 connections, while 154 would come from Citizens Telephone, and Amazon Leo would serve 15.
Other counties with large numbers of connections coming are Grayson (3,830), Halifax (4,650) and Pittsylvania (3,684).
Franklin County is in line for 2,628 connections. ZiTel would provide 2,274 of them, with 121 more fiber-optic locations on tap via other companies. SpaceX will connect 217 locations via free Starlink dishes that BEAD is funding, while six others will go to Amazon Leo.
In Bedford County, 2,855 locations are slated for new service, with ZiTel handling 2,773 connections, SpaceX 70 and Amazon Leo 11. RiverStreet Networks would have one.
Boysko said she was “very pleased” with DHCD’s broadband office staff, which had only 90 days to rewrite their final proposal after NTIA changed the rules.
“They had all the data at their fingertips,” she said. “They’ve done their homework.”