BEAD’s Year-End Snapshot: Satellite, Subsidies, and What’s Still Unsettled
- Kimberly Siversen Burke
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Jan. 16, 2026 by Kimberly Siversen Burke
BEAD Provisional Awards for LEO satellite as of Dec. 31, 2025.
With California submitting one of the last remaining Benefit of the Bargain BEAD proposals in December, we now have a much clearer view of LEO satellite’s slim but strategically meaningful portion of the haul. Starlink and Amazon Leo together still account for just under 5% of all awarded dollars (~$1.04B of $20B) but cover ~20% of total BEAD locations.
That imbalance — modest dollars, disproportionate footprint — mirrors the state-level trends we flagged back in September’s Megaconstellation Monthly and has held steady as late-filing states closed out their proposals.
Several caveats still apply. States must complete challenge processes, resolve appeals, and secure final NTIA approval, and many have deliberately held back material portions of their allocations for later rounds.
More fundamentally, BEAD’s original $42.5B budget was sized in 2022 against an estimated ~15.2 million unserved locations. That universe has since been reduced to ~4.2 million locations with other private and public broadband deployments flipping unserved locations to served and materially altering the program’s economics without changing its statutory funding envelope.
What the Headline Numbers Miss
Much of the industry BEAD coverage mistakenly frames outcomes as a technology horse race, tallying “wins” by fiber, fixed wireless, or satellite as if they were interchangeable solutions.
But it’s way more complicated than that.
Part of the confusion stems from how satellite is treated under BEAD. Fiber awards are classic infrastructure projects: capital construction tied to a specific location. LEO satellite is often funded differently — as service enablement, capacity reservation, or last-resort coverage — and – in some states (like Alaska) – not classified as “infrastructure” at all. Comparing satellite awards to fiber builds on a dollar-for-dollar basis is something we strive to do directionally but misses how states are actually using the technology.
States are not necessarily choosing between fiber and satellite conceptually. They are assigning different technologies to different problem sets under scoring frameworks that vary widely by geography, population density, and state policy priorities. Fiber dominates where long-term reliability, speed, and future-proofing justify the higher cost. LEO satellite prevails where immediacy and reach matter more — often in areas where fiber providers declined to bid at all, leaving satellite as the only scalable option on the table.
This explains why satellite can win a large share of locations (~857k) with a small share of the funding (~1.04B).
Preliminary Pricing Signals
Where states have published both award dollars and locations served, you can do the math to determine approximate pricing for the two LEO players:
Amazon Leo: ~395k disclosed locations at ~$750-800 per location
Starlink: ~462k disclosed locations at ~$1,500-1,600 per location
These are portfolio-level averages, not standardized price points, and they exclude roughly 10 states that disclosed award totals without allocating locations by technology. Even with those limitations, there is a pattern of Amazon Leo bidding materially lower than Starlink.
What these numbers do not represent is cost. No state evaluation process has visibility into, or interest in, the internal cost structure of either constellation.
Why the Prices Diverge
The pricing gap is a function of BEAD scoring mechanics, not satellite economics.
Across many states:
Price accounts for as little as 10% of total proposal scoring
“Cost-effectiveness” is often benchmarked against fiber historical norms, not satellite-specific metrics.
Satellite bids are frequently confined to the most remote, lowest-density, highest-cost locations, where fiber is no longer a realistic alternative.
In that environment, a higher satellite bid doesn’t necessarily lose out.
Where states emphasize reliability, readiness, and demonstrated performance — and many do — Starlink’s mature network gives it substantial latitude. With 9.2 million active users, published performance data, and proven uptime, Starlink carries no constellation-risk discount in BEAD scoring. For program purposes, it behaves like an incumbent because it effectively is one.
Amazon Leo is in a different position. With no established commercial customer base and limited operational history, it must compete on the variables it can control. Price is the most powerful of those levers.
Undercutting, in this context, is entry strategy. Low bids maximize selection odds in states where cost still carries weight, but more importantly, every awarded location gives Amazon Leo:
A state-certified designation that it can serve that address
A foothold in long-term broadband deployment plans
Regulatory cover at a time when constellation-milestone waivers and deployment timelines are under scrutiny
What is BEAD Subsidizing?
A key reason satellite pricing is routinely misread is that BEAD is not funding LEO providers the same way it funds fiber or fixed wireless. For satellite operators, BEAD is not underwriting ongoing broadband service. It is reimbursing a limited, front-loaded obligation.
Under the NTIA’s June 2025 restructuring, satellite awards cover three things: a user terminal (dish), standard installation, and reserved network capacity sufficient to serve the awarded locations. What BEAD does not cover is the monthly subscription. Satellite providers are not required to offer discounted service tiers, adhere to BEAD affordability benchmarks, or guarantee long-term price controls. Households still pay the service fees.
In other words, BEAD is buying access readiness, not broadband service. The subsidy ensures a household can be connected, not that it will be connected on any particular pricing terms. That distinction matters when interpreting per-location reimbursement figures and comparing satellite awards to infrastructure-heavy fiber builds.
Different Games, Same Field
Starlink’s BEAD strategy is best understood as territorial defense. Once a location is deemed “served” by a qualified provider, BEAD funds generally cannot be used to overbuild it with fiber for the next decade. Locking in coverage today constrains competitors tomorrow.
Amazon Leo’s objective is market entry with government imprimatur. BEAD offers the fastest route to legitimacy, trust, and a state-validated presence it needs as it ramps toward commercial service.
Both strategies are rational responses to the same framework:
Starlink bids high because the scoring systems allow it — and because locking down serviceable territory matters more than squeezing margin from subsidies.
Amazon Leo lowballs to secure adoption, territory, and regulatory leverage.
The Real Prize: Map Control
Whether a provider receives $700 or $1,500 per location is, in strategic terms, secondary. What matters is that BEAD awards determine which census blocks are considered solved — and which remain eligible for future subsidy.
And in that sense, LEO operators aren’t simply winning broadband subsidies. They’re carving out strategic territory one census block at a time.
Because BEAD-funded satellite locations are designated as “served” regardless of whether a household subscribes, the subsidy reshapes the map even if no fiber is ever built and no affordability obligation is imposed
The Fate of Remaining Funds
Despite a persistent myth, cheaper satellite deployments do not send BEAD surpluses back to the U.S. Treasury.
Under federal appropriations law, BEAD funds must be deployed within the program’s statutory boundaries even if the number of eligible locations shrinks or deployment strategies evolve. Unspent balances are rolled into additional award rounds, extensions, or other NTIA-approved uses rather than clawed back — a point reaffirmed in a GAO report issued on Dec. 16.
Until recently, that constraint worked in a state’s favor. Remaining BEAD balances could be redirected toward harder-to-serve locations, affordability initiatives, anchor institutions, or other deployment-adjacent purposes approved by NTIA. States were debating how to spend the money, not whether they would lose it.
That was until Trump’s Dec. 11 executive order on AI. Now, states with “onerous AI laws” are ineligible for non-deployment BEAD funds, which is a $21.21B pot that states could lose. The administration cannot legally reclaim the funding since it was already appropriated by Congress, but the NTIA can block access to it. Using broadband funding as a cudgel for federal compliance is an extraordinary use of BEAD policy, so expect some noise about it in 2026.
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