Louisiana today became the first state to announce awards through the BEAD rural broadband funding program. Veneeth Iyengar, executive director for ConnectLA, Louisiana’s broadband office told Telecompetitor on a phone call today that the awards totaling $1.355 billion will make broadband available to all eligible unserved and underserved locations in the state, including about 95% to 96% that will receive fiber broadband.
The state will have about $500 million left over for eligible non-deployment purposes, he added. States are allowed to use BEAD deployment funds for connectivity for anchor institutions or local governmental facilities and certain other purposes if funds are left over after achieving deployment goals.
The awards were made through Louisiana’s GUMBO 2.0 program.
Majority of Providers Won Something
Most service providers that were approved to apply for funding in the program will be awarded funding. Thirty-three providers qualified to apply. Of them, 20 are slated to receive funding, Iyengar said.
Among the companies on the awards list are AT&T, Brightspeed, Charter, Comcast, and Cox. AT&T’s name appears on the list for numerous project areas, more frequently than the other major providers.
The companies slated to receive the largest number of awards, however, are local and regional providers, including the Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium, Conexon Connect, and Nextlink.
Nextlink, which operates in several states, began as a fixed wireless access (FWA) provider but sometimes deploys fiber. I didn’t see any Nextlink awards on the Louisiana list that were for fiber, however. The company apparently will focus on FWA for its BEAD deployments in the state.
There are also some satellite broadband awards on the list, but the provider is unnamed because the awards are pending.
“We haven’t gotten final NTIA guidance on that,” Iyengar said, adding that he expects the awards to be resolved soon.
The state couldn’t wait much longer to release its awardees. The reason is that the state had one year from the time its BEAD funding was released to complete its final proposal, and the awardee list is part of that proposal. In mid-December of last year, Louisiana was the first state to have its funding released.
Iyengar noted that two satellite broadband providers were approved to apply for BEAD funding. The unnamed provider or providers, he said, is “one or the other or both.” One of these providers is SpaceX, which operates the Starlink LEO satellite broadband service.
Deployment Goals Will Be Met
About 95% to 96% of project areas received applications, Iyengar said.
“The balance will go to LEO satellite,” he said.
BEAD rules call for states to negotiate directly with providers to try to get service to areas that did not receive bids. Louisiana already did a negotiation round, Iyengar said.
The following companies are slated to receive Louisiana BEAD funding:
- A2D
- Allen’s Communications
- ATI
- AT&T
- Brightspeed
- Cajun Broadband
- Charter
- Clear Path
- Comcast
- Conexon
- Coushalla Tribe
- Cox
- Direct Communications
- Faster Cajun Networks
- FastWyre
- Louisiana Fiber Consortium
- Nextlink
- Pelican
- PhireLink
- SkyRider
- Volt
- One or two unnamed satellite providers
Additional information about Louisiana broadband, including links to state funding resources, awards made, state specific Telecompetitor coverage and more, can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
