“[Astound has] been awarded a lot of BEAD projects in the state of Washington as well as Oregon, and that is going to drive a lot of our expansion in the next two to three years.”
That’s what Astound (formerly Astound Broadband) Senior Vice President of Operations Jared Sonne — who handles the company’s West Coast operations — told Telecompetitor in an interview last week when we asked him about the provider’s recent provisional wins for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.
Astound has been provisionally awarded about $112 million in BEAD awards in Oregon, $166 million in Texas, and more than $100 million in Washington (largely as part of a consortium called Northwest Open Access Network).
“Without the BEAD assistance, [these projects] are just not economically feasible for us — or really any other provider — to try to go it alone and make the financials work.”
Sonne said Astound was aggressive in the pursuit of BEAD projects, looking for broadband locations “as near to our existing network as could be… so we could build the project and get service to these areas that have been left behind in the race for broadband access everywhere.”
Astound has applied for BEAD funds in California, too. As of this writing, those awards have not yet been announced, but Sonne said those projects tend to be larger in scope, so Astound submitted fewer applications.
He said Astound was pleased by the number of projects they were chosen for — about 50% or more of the projects for which they applied — in Oregon and Washington.
Now, Astound is working closely with the state broadband offices as the states negotiate with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) about cost thresholds.
“There has been a lot of refining of the applications leading up to the deadlines before approval. [Astound is in] constant communication with each of the states’ granting authorities,” Sonne said.
“We had to go back several times to certain projects and see if we could rework some of the numbers to make it more economically attractive to the NTIA and the state. And then the contract negotiation phase will be another stage of further refinement of what the actual build project is going to look like when the contract is signed.”
Sonne said many final projects will be similar to the initial applications, but that the negotiations may result in changes to “how we reach each of the residences that are in each of the project areas.”
The question of which technology Astound will use to reach various locations — i.e., with fiber or fixed wireless access (FWA) — is more open than it was before the revised BEAD rules were issued in June.
“In our initial phase, 100% of the homes would be served using a fiber-to-the-home connection, where now the final applications are a hybrid of majority fiber-to-the-home and a minority of some sort of fixed wireless technology that is more economically feasible,” Sonne said.
Astound is currently assessing which residences in their BEAD project areas can be served well with fixed wireless.
FWA isn’t new for Astound. Earlier this year, the company announced the availability of FWA service to 40,000 homes in Washington’s Clark, Cowlitz, Island, Lewis, Skagit, Snohomish, and Thurston counties, as well as Oregon’s Columbia County.
“We’re excited about fixed wireless; I like to describe it as near-fiber,” Sonne said. “Some of the residences will be able to get up to a Gig off wireless service, which is not readily available today from any other providers. Every [FWA] install is kind of unique and has its own story — and the actual network performance that a resident will realize can vary — but it will be well above the government’s threshold for what qualifies as broadband.”
Bringing Broadband to Rural Areas
Oregon’s Highway 6 — between Tillamook and Portland — is remote and in sore need of road maintenance. I used to drive the route frequently. On the way to Tillamook, my cell signal dropped around milepost 38 and didn’t pick up again until milepost 6 or so. Last year, I noticed signs of broadband construction along the highway. Later, I learned it was an Astound project that connected fiber via a subsea cable to 270 homes along Highway 6.
Sonne said “that was a difficult build to execute.” Astound also recently completed the first-ever fiber network in Newport, Oregon. “Astound is very committed to bringing broadband to as many rural communities as we can,” he said, referring to the company’s commitment both before and after BEAD.
Sonne referenced partnerships with county governments in California that drew on American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and a plan to bring fiber to a tower on Herron Island — a remote island in Washington — and transmit FWA to residents and businesses via microwave technology.
“It’s another example of creative ways to make it work,” Sonne said.
