Nextlink Activates First BEAD-Funded Tower in the United States, Connecting Rural Louisiana

On May 1, 2026, Nextlink Internet activated the first tower in the nation funded by the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. The site is located in southern Bienville Parish (LA), bringing service to 104 BEAD locations in Bossier Parish. It is delivering up to gigabit-speed internet to homes and businesses across northwest Louisiana via fixed wireless infrastructure. The activation is the first time households have had service available via BEAD-funded broadband infrastructure anywhere in the United States, four and a half years after the $42.45 billion program was created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November 2021. It also makes Louisiana the first state to convert BEAD funding into live infrastructure, adding to a string of national firsts the state has claimed under the Landry Administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s restructured program. This tower is one part of an $18.5 million Louisiana BEAD subgrant to Nextlink that will deliver gigabit-class fixed wireless infrastructure to 7,460 unserved and underserved locations across Louisiana, awarded through ConnectLA’s GUMBO 2.0 program. Nextlink is deploying Tarana ngFWA Gen 2 technology over 3.5 GHz CBRS spectrum, the same architecture the company has scaled to over 350 live sectors nationwide, the largest G2 footprint in the world.