When the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) revealed several weeks ago that its changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program would include cost thresholds, the state of Colorado had reason to be concerned.
“We know Colorado is expensive,” said Brandy Reitter, executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office, in an interview with Telecompetitor on Friday. “We knew this was going to be a topic of conversation.”
The award recommendations that the state submitted to NTIA based on the new rules — commonly known as the Benefit of the Bargain — call for just over 50% of locations to be served by fiber or fixed wireless, with the rest going to low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite, according to Connected Nation.
About 47.6% of the Colorado BEAD total is slated to go to fiber. Fiber’s share decreased from what it would have been before rule changes eliminated an initial preference for fiber technology.
The fiber percentage could have been even lower, however, if the state of Colorado hadn’t intervened and opted to cover some project costs. The state contributed $51 million toward project costs, including $35 million to enable fiber projects to come in under the $19,000-per location threshold that NTIA set for the state.
The remaining $16 million went toward matching funds. Awardees were required to cover at least 25% of total projects; for some projects, that would have been difficult or impossible without the state’s help.
As Reitter explained, the state contributed the funding to “remove any tension points in our final proposal.”
If the state hadn’t made this move, Reitter estimates that as much as 80% of locations would have gone to LEO.
The state’s portion of project costs came from funds that were set aside from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Because Colorado kept BEAD Benefit of the Bargain award recommendations below $19,000 per location, NTIA has not required the state to renegotiate with providers — something Reitter did not want to do.
Before the Colorado contributions to BEAD funding, “we had fiber applications for more than $24,000 to $25,000 per passing.”
The state’s funding was used to make up the difference between those numbers and the threshold.
The Benefit of the Bargain
The Colorado Broadband Office had previously conducted two application rounds under the original BEAD rules. When providers had to re-apply under the new rules, some opted not to do so.
“Some ran out of money to put applications together,” Reitter explained.
In addition, some Colorado providers that originally planned to use only fiber opted instead to use a mixture of fiber and fixed wireless for their BEAD projects.
The latest Colorado award recommendations total about $420 million, a little over half of the $826.5 million allocated to the state for the program.
One thing Reitter learned from the Benefit of the Bargain round experience, she said, is that “We can do really hard things in a lot less time in government. We don’t need to spend three years in a program.”
More information about broadband in Colorado, including links to state funding resources, BEAD news, and state-specific Telecompetitor coverage, can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
