Vermont Community Broadband Board Releases Plan to Finish Vermont's Broadband Buildout

Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB) released the Vermont Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (VT-BEAD) Draft Final Proposal, which is the state’s plan to accomplish the goal of enabling all Vermonters to have access to high-speed reliable broadband. Vermont’s BEAD allocation is almost $229 million. The VT-BEAD Draft Final Proposal lists the provisional grantees of those funds and what technology they plan to use to serve all remaining unserved and underserved addresses in their project areas. The bids included in the Draft Final Proposal total $179,426,004.96. Provisional subgrantee providers are Comcast, Consolidated Communications, DVFiber, Maple Broadband, NEK Broadband, SpaceX, and Vermont Telephone. Almost 90% of the federal BEAD funds will go to build out fiber, about 6% will go to satellite, and the remaining 4% will go to hybrid fiber coaxial cable. The VT-BEAD Draft Final Proposal is posted along with a public comment form. It will be open for public comment until September 4, when it will be submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).