Let the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Grant Process Begin!

The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the $42.2 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants has been released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Here are some issues I’ll be exploring in more detail:

• The grants draw a firm technology line, using ‘reliable broadband service’ to mean existing technologies that are considered to be broadband.
• The grants include complicated new requirements such as: a cybersecurity plan, a climate resiliency plan, a supply chain risk management plan, a middle-class affordability plan, and a project workforce continuity plan if not using union labor.
• The grants layer on a lot of costs onto broadband projects that would not be there for an internet service provider building a rural project on its own.
• The grants are clearly stacked against new internet service providers in a dozen places.
• While grants can be as high as 75 percent, the NTIA expects States to award grants to applicants that ask for the lowest amount of grant funding.
• There are some "gotcha" financial requirements that are going to stop a lot of entities from requesting the grants.
• The complexity of the grant rules will likely overwhelm most state grant offices, which are often newly staffed.
• The grants seem to have some teeth for non-performance, something that’s been lacking in grants in the past.

[Doug Dawson is president of CCG Consulting.]