Bowling Green, Kentucky, (March 14, 2023) – In the last post, I gave an example of a BEAD grant award that was too big. The state should have required more private matching capital. But sometimes, a nearly 100% subsidy is necessary in order to make any broadband deployment project happen at all. In this post, I’ll show why. It’s one …
BEAD Pitfall: Overpaying and leaving money on the table
Bowling Green, Kentucky (February 9, 2023) – In my last post, I introduced a model BEAD grant scenario — a general way to envision what will happen when states begin making Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants to internet service providers (ISPs) starting in 2024. That version had states doing a pretty good job of getting the work done without …
Optimal BEAD grant theory
Bowling Green, Kentucky (February 1, 2023) – On November 15, 2021, U.S. Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which created, among other things, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. With $42.45 billion appropriated, the goal of this program is to deliver fast 100/20 Mbps internet access to every broadband serviceable location — every home or …