Vistabeam CEO: Why timely BEAD reimbursement is important

As the National Telecommunications and Information Administration begins to get the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program off the ground, it’s now up to the internet service providers to nail down their contracts with states and ensure there’s enough cash on hand to complete builds, according to Vistabeam CEO Matt Larsen.From an outsider’s perspective, “it looks like we’re just getting millions of dollars to go out and do this, but we have to put out more than that to go out and get these projects started and actually get them built,” he said. A big part of getting BEAD projects in order is to have “a really good understanding of what the reimbursement schedules are.” Generally, subgrantees receive a certain amount of BEAD funding after meeting specific buildout milestones, but the exact schedule and reimbursement amount depends on the state and project. “That determines the maximum amount of financing we have at any given time,” Larsen said. “The states seem like they all have kind of a different setup on that, so I’m curious to see how that works.”