Awards announced, agreements executed, milestones reached — monitored daily across all 56 state and territory programs, AI-verified against official sources.
The Texas Broadband Development Office paused all BEAD disbursements to subgrantees starting Monday, citing an ongoing audit into alleged favoritism toward Starlink. Two senior broadband officials were reportedly dismissed shortly before the hold, which state officials say will remain in place until further notice.
The Texas Broadband Development Office paused all BEAD disbursements to subgrantees starting Monday, citing an ongoing audit with no set completion date. The hold followed the dismissal of two senior broadband officials and allegations that the office showed favoritism toward Elon Musk's Starlink.
The Texas Broadband Development Office placed a temporary hold on all BEAD disbursements after being accused of favoritism toward Elon Musk's Starlink in subgrantee selection, prompting lawmakers to announce an audit. The hold on billions in federal funds began Tuesday and remains in effect pending the audit's outcome.
Texas has paused disbursements of billions of dollars in federal BEAD funding after two senior broadband office officials were dismissed and an audit was launched. The Texas Broadband Development Office told subgrantees the hold took effect Monday and will remain 'until further notice' with no completion date set for the audit.
The Texas Broadband Development Office placed a temporary hold on all disbursements of billions of dollars in BEAD funds effective August 11, 2026, after being accused of favoritism toward certain companies, specifically Starlink. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows have called for an audit of the office's award process, which had already disbursed more than $3 billion in BEAD funding.
The Texas Broadband Development Office placed a temporary hold on all disbursements tied to the state's roughly $1.2 billion BEAD allocation after allegations surfaced that the office favored SpaceX's Starlink in grant awards. Lawmakers have ordered an audit and the state's new comptroller has launched an internal review, telling subgrantees no further action is required for now.
Astound VP Fred Maldonado said the company is walking away from BEAD grants in Texas after the state awarded only 5 of its 33 applications, leaving noncontiguous, uneconomical build areas. Public records show Astound forfeited about $166 million in provisional Texas awards, with rising construction costs and elapsed time since application cited as key factors. Other Texas providers, including Resound Networks, also stepped away from portions of their awards.
Astound Broadband forfeited about $165–166 million in provisional Texas BEAD awards after the state approved only 5 of the 33 project applications it submitted, which were designed to form a single contiguous fiber route extending from its existing network into more than 30 counties. Astound VP Fred Maldonado said the partial approval left it with disconnected counties far from its footprint, making the build uneconomical, especially amid rising costs during the lengthy award process. The Texas Broadband Development Office confirmed four tentative grant winners, including Astound and Resound Networks, rescinded their awards, affecting roughly 31,000 locations.
The Texas Broadband Development Office announced it finalized subgrantee agreements for BEAD, awarding funds to 17 providers to connect over 208,000 locations, down from the roughly 240,000 locations and $1.27 billion in provisional awards announced in October. Telecompetitor's June 8 podcast and article detailed the differences, including four providers that rescinded awards and notable increases/decreases for individual providers like Nexstream, Lyte Fiber, and USConnect Holdings.
The Texas Broadband Development Office announced it has finalized BEAD subgrantee agreements with 17 providers, totaling $1,067,572,758 to connect 208,873 unserved/underserved locations. This is down from the $1.27B provisional awards announced last October, with five providers (including Astound Broadband and Amazon Kuiper) losing their awards entirely and several others seeing significant changes in funding and location counts.
Weekly digest of verified news — awards, executed agreements, and milestones across every state program.
