Louisiana’s Revised BEAD Awardees: Who Gains? Who Loses?

Louisiana has released its updated Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program final proposal for public comment. It is based on the state’s Benefit of the Bargain round conducted under the new program rules and includes a revised list of proposed funding awardees. The next step is for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to approve the final proposal, which will finalize the awardees. Perhaps the biggest question on the industry’s mind is about the impact of the new BEAD rules on the broadband technology mix. The new Louisiana proposal calls for 80 percent of locations to get fiber broadband, while 9 percent of locations will be served by low Earth orbit satellite service, and the remainder will be almost equally split between cable and fixed wireless technology.