The state of West Virginia has recommended nine providers for a total of $624.7 million in funding through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. The awards were made under the new rules established in June by the federal government.
The funding will cover some of the costs of deploying high-speed broadband to 73,701 underserved and unserved locations. That includes all locations eligible for BEAD funding, according to a press release from the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council.
According to Vikash Harlalka, a telecom financial analyst at New Street Research, the companies slated to receive the most funding are Frontier and West Virginia-based Citynet. If approved, both companies will receive more than $200 million each for more than 24,000 locations apiece.
Following them, in descending order by amount of funding proposed, are Comcast ($61.3 million), Micrologic ($52.9 million), GigaBeam ($23.4 million), Prodigi ($21.6 million), Armstrong ($12.7 million), Hardy Communications ($7.9 million), and SpaceX ($6.4 million).
Awards will not be final until they are approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Fiber Dominates the West Virginia BEAD List
While SpaceX was the smallest winner, measured by amount of funding, it was the fifth biggest winner measured by the number of locations for which it won funding. According to Harlalka, SpaceX is the only company on the list that plans to use technology other than fiber.
The company is slated to serve 4.241 locations with its low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service. That’s just under 6% of locations.
West Virginia is the third state to release its proposed list of BEAD Benefit of the Bargain awardees. Despite changes to the BEAD rules that eliminate an initial preference for fiber broadband, all three states recommended most funding to go to fiber.
Priority Project Definition
How a state awards Benefit of the Bargain funding depends, in large part, on how it defines a “priority broadband project.”
In a draft of West Virginia’s BEAD final proposal, the state notes that it applied the new definition established in June.
That definition specifies speeds of no less than 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream; latency of no more than 100 milliseconds; and the ability to easily scale over time to meet evolving connectivity needs, support the deployment of 5G and future wireless technologies, and other advanced services.
To gauge scalability and related factors, the West Virginia Division of Economic Development (WVDED) asked applicants about:
- Future upload speed changes and additions to the network that will be required to provide the scale. WVDED also asked about the projected timeframe for these upgrades.
- Ability to scale. To gauge this, WVDED asked how the proposed networks would be technologically capable of reducing bandwidth shared among users to improve the experience at peak times. In addition, WVDED asked how network capacity would be able to absorb and serve newly built broadband serviceable locations in the area.
- Wireless and other advanced services. Applicants were asked about any plan to use the network to provide 5G or successor wireless technologies or to provide backhaul and fronthaul connectivity. Applicants also answered questions about plans to use technology to reduce latency.
WVDED also considered West Virginia’s heavy tree cover, steep valleys, and mountainous terrain, including how those characteristics varied within the state.
Primary and Secondary Criteria
The revised NTIA BEAD rules include primary and secondary criteria for making award decisions.
For the primary criterion — minimal BEAD outlay —West Virginia selected the competing combination of projects covering each target region with the lowest overall grant cost for that region.
The secondary criteria came into play if one or more combinations fell within 15% of the cost of the lowest-cost combination. The weights that West Virginia used for these criteria were:
- Speed to deployment: 5-10 points for credible deployment plans within 18-36 months
- Speed of network and other technical capabilities: 45 points for projects demonstrating the ability to provide symmetrical gigabit service to all target locations
- Previously selected for BEAD: 45 points for projects selected as the provisional awardee prior to the BEAD rule changes
Additional information about West Virginia broadband, including links to state funding resources, BEAD news, state-specific Telecompetitor coverage, and more can be found on Telecompetitor’s Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
