One of the most common questions I’ve been fielding is when we’ll be able to file for grants from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants that come from the $42.5 billion funding that will pass from the NTIA and be administered through the states. The short answer to the question is that we can’t know yet. But we know all of the steps that must be taken by a state before it can start offering grants.
We have a date for the first step of the process. On May 15, the NTIA will release a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the BEAD program. This document will flesh out the NTIAs understanding of how the grant process will work. The legislation that enabled the grants included some specific requirements, and in this document, the NTIA will embellish and add details to those requirements. Note that the purpose of the NOFO is to inform the States what must be included in the grants the States will ultimately award. This NOFO will not be the rules for grant applicants – those rules will differ as each State adds its own twist on the basic NTIA rules.
After the NOFO is published, States will have to file a letter of intent (LOI) with the NTIA to describe the current state of broadband in the State and must describe the State’s plan for using and administering the BEAD funding. States are allowed to request up to $5 million at the time that they submit the LOI. This funding is provided to help States reach out to citizens, communities, and businesses. The funds can be used for a variety of planning purposes like data collection, developing a budget for operating the State grant program, materials for outreach to the public, etc. States that accept the $5 million of funding must file a 5-Year Action Plan to the NTIA. This document will describe how a State will set priorities for things like economic development, telehealth, or whatever priorities a given State feels are the most important. To clarify a question I’ve gotten a few times – this $5 million is strictly for the state to do planning and will not be turned into planning grants for anybody else.
The whole process is then on hold until the FCC releases updated broadband maps. This is the step I’m worried about because the new broadband maps will be the first time that ISPs will be using the new mapping system. I will be surprised if the first maps from the new process are not a messy disaster – and I’m not sure what happens if they are. It’s hard to think that the FCC will be ready to release the new mapping data before the end of this year, although the agency will be under huge pressure to get this done sooner.
At this stage, the purpose of the FCC maps is to count the number of unserved and underserved homes in each state in order to decide how much funding each state will get. It won’t be surprising to see a few states sue the NTIA at this point if they feel that the maps are erroneous and that their state is getting shorted on funding – recall that many states have had mapping programs and they think they already know the number of people without broadband.
Once the amount of funding to each state is known, States must file what is being called an Initial Proposal. This is the document where the State describes how it will administer the BEAD grants. The Initial Proposal will describe the detailed grant rules each State plans to use to choose grant winners and administer grants once awarded. Each State must issue a list of areas that it thinks are eligible to meet its proposed grant rules.
The NTIA will review each Initial Proposal. That’s a daunting task, and States that get the Initial Proposals in first will probably get reviewed first by the NTIA. There is no guarantee that the NTIA will approve a plan, particularly if a State’s plan violates any of the rules specifically proscribed by Congress – such as making grant awards available to municipalities. I believe the NTIA also must judge if a State has assembled a team capable of administering the proposed grants – something that many states are already behind on. If the NTIA doesn’t approve an Initial Proposal, then I assume that the State and the NTIA will begin a negotiation process. The way I read the rules, if a State doesn’t get approved, the State won’t be given any BEAD funding.
If the NTIA approves a State’s Initial Proposal, the NTIA will then release 20% of the BEAD funding allocated to that State. The next step might be messy because a State that receives this funding must next complete a challenge process where it gives incumbent ISPs a chance to dispute any areas that are listed as grant eligible. Some challenges will be easy – such as where an ISP has built fiber since the date of the data in the FCC maps. But the experience with similar challenges in the recent NTIA grants portends a big mess for State broadband offices if huge number of challenges are mounted. This could become a protracted battle if any ISPs take unsuccessful challenges to court. Note that this is the State reviewing the challenges, not interested communities and ISPs, and we will quickly see if a given State is biased towards incumbents or communities.
Once the challenge process has been fully resolved, a State must submit its Final Proposal. This will reflect any changes made as a result of the challenge process. The NTIA must then approve the Final Proposal and will release the rest of the BEAD grant funds to a state.
This process is overly complicated and seems aimed at moving slowly – but it was dictated by Congress to be that way. It’s impossible to guess a timeline for the process. It’s hard to envision the first State being able to announce a grant program until the summer of 2023 – but I predict that most states will be later than that. For communities waiting for broadband, it’s hard to imagine much construction starting before 2024, with many projects then requiring multiple years to build.