Louisiana

Cajun Broadband celebrated alongside community leaders, ConnectLA, and representatives from Governor Jeff Landry’s office to mark the successful completion of a pivotal broadband project in Vermilion Parish (LA). Through ConnectLA's Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities 1.0 program, reliable high-speed internet access is now reaching an abundance of homes and businesses across Vermilion Parish, in communities including Gueydan and Erath.

In January of this year, Louisiana became the first state in the nation to secure federal approval for our plan to deploy over $1.3 billion in BEAD funding. This achievement is a testament to the bipartisan nature of Louisiana’s approach to universal connectivity and illustrates how we should all strive to treat broadband access in our states. The state began the BEAD application process under Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards.

Today's big news is that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approved 18 Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program Final Proposals. As a reminder, we've been tracking what those proposals looked like when they were submitted to the NTIA. In the coming days, we'll be examining the final final (Is that what we should call them?) BEAD plans to see what changes were made during the approval process.

Gov. Jeff Landry announced today that Louisiana is the first state in the country to receive federal approval of its final proposal to deploy $1.355 billion in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment funding. The approval marks a major milestone for Louisiana’s GUMBO 2.0 program, moving the state closer to connecting every parish with reliable, high-speed internet. The plan also supports long-term growth in the workforce, education, healthcare, and innovation. Louisiana’s approved proposal outlines a strategy to:

Following a June 6 announcement from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that restructured the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, all states and territories have been tasked with reevaluating their plans to connect un- and underserved locations to high-speed internet.

SpaceX is trying to block Louisiana’s plan to use over $400 million for fiber installations instead of allocating more money for satellite-based services like Starlink.

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.

On March 31, 2025, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau notified Cox of its failure to meet its third year Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) broadband deployment interim milestones in California, Louisiana, Nebraska and Virginia. This letter satisfies Cox’s requirement to file by June 30, 2025 a quarterly report regarding its progress towards compliance. In California and Louisiana, Cox identified and certified additional locations which were deployed in 2024 but not included in the year-end reporting and annual certifications.