Louisiana on Monday became the first state to award funding from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, with 95% of the state's funds set to go to fiber providers including AT&T and Conexon.
Louisiana will award the vast majority of its funding from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program to fiber providers, according to the state's final BEAD proposal released on Monday, November 18.
The final proposal, which is open for public comment through December 10, officially makes Louisiana the first state to award funding through the $42.5 billion BEAD program. It comes after Louisiana opened its grant program in August, and after the state was the first in the nation to receive NTIA approval on its initial BEAD proposal in December 2023.
According to the state, BEAD awards will allow providers to reach 140,000 locations with broadband infrastructure across all 64 Louisiana parishes – including "100,000 households, 35,000 small businesses and 4,000 community anchor institutions," states a press release.
In addition to roughly $748 million in infrastructure funding, Louisiana will also allocate over $500 million in "non-deployment funds" for efforts including expanding telehealth and promoting digital programming in K-12 schools.
The state further clarified that over 90% of the awarded fiber plant will be buried underground "to ensure infrastructure integrity," and that over 30 mobile towers will be built "to ensure overall telecommunications resilience."
Awarded providers
The largest recipients of infrastructure funding include an entity dubbed as "Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium," which picked up $450.5 million to cover 76,815 locations. That's followed by Conexon Connect ($65 million to cover 8,489 locations) and AT&T ($54.9 million to cover 20,073 locations). As the state notes in its final proposal, roughly 70% of deployment funds will go to companies based in Louisiana.
Louisiana also has $28.7 million pending for an "alternative technology provider" to cover 2,869 locations at $10,000 per location. These areas, which received no interest from fiber or fixed wireless providers, are expected to be covered by SpaceX's Starlink or Amazon's Project Kuiper, which were both pre-approved providers for Louisiana's BEAD program.
The highest any service provider received per broadband serviceable location (BSL) was $16,630 (Faster Cajun Networks), with the lowest being $1,424 (A2D Inc.), putting Louisiana's average spend per BSL at $5,355.
See a full list of Louisiana's selected BEAD providers and totals below:
Service Provider | Total BSLs | Total Funding | Funding per BSL |
|---|---|---|---|
Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium | 76,815 | $450,476,832 | $5,864 |
Nextlink | 2,474 | $5,311,789 | $2,147 |
AT&T | 20,073 | $54,943,186 | $2,737 |
Charter | 1,701 | $11,739,186 | $6,901 |
Brightspeed | 2,801 | $7,510,130 | $2,681 |
ClearPath Fiber | 7,356 | $34,545,962 | $4,696 |
Conexon Connect | 8,489 | $65,902,273 | $7,763 |
Cajun Broadband | 4,667 | $26,720,564 | $5,725 |
Coushatta Tribe of LA | 641 | $3,529,898 | $5,507 |
FastWyre | 17 | $68,057 | $4,003 |
A2D Inc | 4,758 | $6,773,005 | $1,424 |
Direct Communications | 1,837 | $17,442,414 | $9,495 |
SkyRider Communications | 764 | $5,893,456 | $7,714 |
PhireLink | 148 | $550,002 | $3,716 |
Comcast | 205 | $749,229 | $3,655 |
Cox Communications | 1,611 | $10,685,237 | $6,633 |
Allen's Communications | 310 | $1,549,003 | $4,997 |
Pelican Broadband | 1,314 | $4,210,190 | $3,204 |
Faster Cajun Networks | 383 | $6,369,256 | $16,630 |
Volt Broadband | 444 | $4,366,076 | $9,834 |
PENDING: Alternative Technology Provider | 2,869 | $28,690,000 | $10,000 |
Louisiana still needs NTIA sign-off on its final proposal to begin BEAD deployments. The public can send comments on the final proposal through Tuesday, December 10.
Current state of BEAD
As of today, Tuesday, November 19, every state and territory (now including Texas, the only state that was outstanding) has NTIA approval on their initial BEAD proposals, enabling all 56 eligible entities to move forward with their grant programs. To that end, the NTIA has also released a new BEAD dashboard tracking next steps in the process (including executing their challenge process, selecting eligible ISPs and releasing a final proposal).
In a blog post today, the NTIA marked the milestone of officially approving every state and territory's initial BEAD plan and expressed optimism for the road ahead:
"BEAD was designed as the 'clean-up hitter' of Internet funding – to fill gaps that aren't covered by other federal programs or connected by the private sector alone. To accomplish that goal, Congress required NTIA and the states to take a deliberate and comprehensive approach to their Internet planning," wrote the NTIA. "Thanks to the hard work of state broadband offices and support from Governors, Members of Congress, and local advocates, we are on time and on track to meeting the President's goal of delivering Internet for All by 2030."
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