Updated November 19 and 20 with information from additional states.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said today that it has approved award recommendations for 15 states and three territories in the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Telecompetitor reached out to all 15 states to ask about any changes made by NTIA. Several states answered us. We will update this post as more responses come in.
The upshot: NTIA’s changes so far have been relatively minor. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the trend will continue. It’s possible that the first awards lists to be approved were those requiring the fewest changes.
It’s also important to keep in mind that for some states, the final awards list is the third version of the list. Some states had submitted awards lists under the original BEAD rules, which NTIA changed in June.
According to NTIA, the revisions made to the BEAD awards for the 18 states and territories will save $6 billion. That comparison undoubtedly was made against the funding originally allotted to the 18 entities.
The savings came, in part, from the June changes to the BEAD rules, as well as from a reduction in eligible locations between when the funding was allotted and tentatively awarded. That was a period of over two years, and the broadband industry made a considerable number of broadband deployments during that time.
NTIA-Approved Benefit of the Bargain Awards
The 15 states whose Benefit of the Bargain round awards have been approved by NTIA are:
- Arkansas
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- North Dakota
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Virginia
- Wyoming
The three territories whose awards were approved are American Samoa, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
As of early Wednesday afternoon, November 19, seven states had responded to Telecompetitor’s inquiry about NTIA changes to the award recommendations that most states submitted by early September.
A spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Technology and Information said the state would not release a new awards list until the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) reviews it. Awards lists are not final until NIST has completed that review.
A spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection provided a similar response, stating that the awards are not final at this stage. “Once awards are finalized, the Office of Telecommunications and Broadband (OTB) will publish an interactive public award map,” the spokesperson said.
NTIA didn’t ask Maine to make any additional changes to its Benefit of the Bargain Round recommendations beyond the minor ones that Brian Allenby, chief operating officer for Maine Connectivity Authority, discussed with Telecompetitor in October, Allenby told us on Tuesday. Those changes involved locations that NTIA considered ineligible for funding.
South Carolina was not required to make any changes to its Benefit of the Bargain Round award recommendations, said Jim Stritzinger, director of the state’s broadband office, in an email to Telecompetitor.
Brian Newby, North Dakota broadband program director, cautioned that he hadn’t seen NTIA’s final list. But he told us that the number of locations that NTIA approved is identical to what the state submitted.
Carter Chapman, press secretary for Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp, shared the state’s latest BEAD Benefit of the Bargain Round awards list with Telecompetitor. The awards are unchanged from what the state submitted to NTIA.
“Georgia was able to work with our applicants and NTIA to not make any forced changes to the final proposal that the state submitted on September 3,” said Deborah Rollins, communications director for the Georgia Technology Authority, in an email to Telecompetitor.
Louisiana Can Access Its BEAD Funds
The results from Louisiana are important because the state has the distinction of being the first state to sign its award amendment, which means that the state can access its BEAD funds.
In a phone interview with Telecompetitor on Thursday, Veneeth Iyengar, executive director of Louisiana’s broadband office, ConnectLA, confirmed that both NTIA and NIST had approved the state’s final awards list, which can be seen below.
As Iyengar explained, NTIA essentially approves a state’s plan, while NIST approves the state’s budget, then sends a notice of award with terms and conditions. NIST’s role also includes grant management, he said. The process of determining the final list was collaborative, he noted.
The federal administrators required a few changes to Louisiana’s Benefit of the Bargain round recommendations, but they were minor.
The state recommended SpaceX for $7.7 million for 10,327 locations but also noted 1,044 potential additional low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite locations. The revised list from NTIA calls for SpaceX to receive $8.2 million for 10,635 locations.
Brightspeed also got a bit of a boost. Louisiana’s Benefit of the Bargain Round recommendations called for the state to receive $5,751,955 for 2,609 locations. The revised list calls for the state to receive $5,755,955 for 2,611 locations.
The state’s final BEAD Benefit of the Bargain Round awards list follows.
NTIA said it will be posting final awards for all states as the awards are approved but did not specify when that would begin.
Updated to include additional information from additional states
