After Louisiana was the first state to have its BEAD rural broadband funding released in late 2023, it was several months before any other states had their funding released. It looked like a sure bet that Louisiana would be the first to make BEAD awards — and, according to Louisiana Broadband Director Veneeth Iyengar, that’s still the case.
Last week, Montana became the first state to begin accepting BEAD applications. Louisiana began accepting applications a few days later, on August 19. Louisiana is giving broadband providers just two weeks to apply in Round 1, and the state expects to begin accepting applications for a second round just a few weeks later.
The second round also will have a two-week deadline. Iyengar expects the state to make its final decisions for the entire $1.3 billion that the state was awarded for BEAD no later than November 1.
One of the reasons it took Louisiana several months from the time its BEAD funding was released until it began accepting applications is that the state wanted to make sure all the pieces were in place for a speedy applications process, Iyengar explained in an interview with Telecompetitor.
“Our maps were federally approved several months ago,” said Iyengar. “The risk you run if you don’t have these maps approved in advance of launching your grant program is that, let’s say NTIA down the road says, ‘Hey, some of your challenges that you submitted are incorrect,’ that could impact project areas, which would mean that you have to redo a bunch of stuff.”
Louisiana took several key actions on July 1, including releasing project areas and launching the pre-qualification process that cleared 33 broadband providers to apply for funding, Iyengar noted.
This approach reduced “the administrative burden on us to execute quickly” and “the administrative burden for the providers to know with certainty where those actual locations are,” Iyengar added.
According to Iyengar, this preparation should reduce “the administrative burdens on the back end, which is going to help accelerate things.”
Only a few states have had their challenge results and map approved by NTIA, he said.
Additional information about Louisiana broadband, including state funding resources, awards made, and state-specific Telecompetitor coverage, can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.