BROADBAND NATION EXPO, ORLANDO – States have been itching to start building for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, and it looks like the federal government is about to grant their wish.
NTIA announced Tuesday it approved the final proposals for 18 states and territories and that one state – Louisiana – now officially has access to its BEAD allocation. The approved states and territories are: Louisiana, Wyoming, Iowa, American Samoa, Georgia, Arkansas, Delaware, Guam, Maine, New Hampshire, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Connecticut, South Carolina, North Dakota, Hawaii, Montana, Rhode Island and Virginia.
It’s big news given NTIA only six months ago revamped the program’s guidance. But broadband directors from Arizona and Nevada – both of which are still waiting on their approvals – stressed Wednesday that each state is in different stages of the process.
“It’s tough to generalize, because every state’s final proposal is different,” said Brian Mitchell, director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology. “There’s certainly standard things they look at across every state.”
NTIA has said it’s aiming to get all the BEAD money out the door by year-end, but Mitchell noted there’s one last, crucial step before states can get their funding and start negotiating contracts with ISPs. That’s approval from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which handles the actual grant administration.
“NTIA has told us that [they’re going to expedite] the NIST review, and I hope that’s true,” he said, But in Nevada’s case, he believes “we’re very close” in getting its proposal greenlit.
Arizona is in a similar boat, noted Nicholas Capozzi, VP and state broadband director at the state’s Commerce department. He said while Arizona had to essentially “tear it up and start all over” once the June 6 restructuring notice came out, he thinks the Benefit of the Bargain round helped speed up the bureaucratic process while encouraging more ISPs to participate.
Specifically, the state saw a 40% increase in applications and a 33% uptick in additional providers, Capozzi said. “A lot of providers who were participating in round one sharpen[ed] their pencils significantly.”
“The project costs stayed the same, but they provided additional capital to be competitive and different solutions too,” he added, such as hybrid fiber with fixed wireless or even low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite.
But challenges aplenty remain as states pivot to the BEAD deployment stage. No surprise, permitting is a big one as it impacts infrastructure coordination, worker and community safety, network security and more, said David Bronston, special counsel at law firm Phillips Lytle.
“You have this tension in our country of local land management. In wireless in particular, you may have to notify the people within 250 feet of the facility. You may have to notice a public hearing,” he said. “These are just inherent problems.”
It’s not just local government permitting, as Mitchell noted 86% of Nevada is covered by federal land. Capozzi meanwhile said he believes permitting is at its core “an information sharing issue.”
“A lot of times providers come in and they just don’t really know what types of permits they need,” he said.