Federal, State Broadband Officials Stress 'Urgency' of Preparing for BEAD Program
Broadband officials and providers stressed the urgency of preparing for NTIA's broadband, equity, access and deployment program. State officials noted their offices are considering affordability when evaluating providers' grant applications and emphasized stakeholder engagement, during a Thursday USTelecom event on broadband connectivity.
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The Commerce Department is "very focused on making sure that we're creating pathways for everyone in the country to have the opportunity to benefit from programs like the BEAD program,” said Deputy Secretary Don Graves. It's also “incumbent upon us to build a resilient set of systems to be focused on national security, which includes cybersecurity,” Graves said.
Louisiana’s broadband office is working “with a sense of urgency” to be able to “work quickly in pushing out money,” said Veneeth Iyengar, executive director-broadband development and connectivity, adding “the only way we can constantly improve the process is through an acute and a heightened sense of stakeholder engagement.” Georgia Director-Broadband Initiatives Josh Hildebrandt agreed and noted having an affordability metric instead of mandating it in the state's grant programs is "something that is not onerous" and "not making industry and providers balk at applying for these funds."
The BEAD program will “live and breathe in the details and the complex work that will be expected of all of us really from all sides of the ecosystem,” said USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter: “We have a lot of work in front of us.” Many states are “in the position where they're flying the plane as they're actually building it,” said Epictouch President Becky Scott, emphasizing the need for a “strong plan” to communicate “midstream changes.”
The Commerce Department is focused on addressing permitting because it's “hard to get a permit to get a project done, to get approvals when you need it,” he said. Graves noted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s Buy America provision, acknowledging “sometimes you're not going to be able to get American-produced goods in a timely fashion for specific projects.” Providers will be given the opportunity to receive a waiver “where it’s necessary,” he said.
State broadband officials in Georgia and Louisiana said their offices plan to consider capabilities, competencies and execution risks when evaluating grant applications. “These things matter, and these are things that we're looking at,” Hildebrandt said. Iyengar agreed: “As much as we can reduce the execution risk by partnering with companies that know how to build these networks and know how to do it successfully with a sense of sufficiency, we're all for awarding those companies as many points as possible.”
Panelists emphasized the need for accurate broadband maps to ensure communities are connected. Challenging the FCC’s broadband maps "took a lot of time and work” because many of the locations not listed were “mainly locations that we were already existing customers that we were providing service to,” Scott said. Another issue was that some challenges submitted in the first round weren’t included in the map's second rollout, she said. “It doesn't look like a lot of folks do a lot of due diligence,” said Duo Broadband CEO-Executive Vice President Tom Preston, making the challenge process “a little tough” because the fabric is “constantly changing.”