Notification of the New Policy for BEAD program

[Boccella, Sally (Hickenlooper)]

 

 

Good afternoon,

 

Last week, The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued new policy directives requiring changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

 

The BEAD program, established by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and managed by the NTIA, allocated $42.45 billion to states and territories. In 2024, Colorado received $826.5 million for broadband deployment to expand high-speed internet access in rural areas, supporting economic growth, education, healthcare, and community resilience.

 

Notable Changes to the BEAD Program

• Deprioritized Fiber: The NTIA removed the fiber first preference from the program and the CBO cannot exclude any technology as long as it meets the speed, latency, and scalability requirements. This likely means most unserved/underserved areas will receive LEO satellite or fixed wireless, not fiber as planned. While these technologies have uses, the NTIA has removed CBO's ability to work with community and providers to determine their appropriateness within BEAD. They have limited lifespans compared to fiber, a permanent infrastructure that supports:
  • Future technologies like quantum, AI applications, data centers, and 5G
  • Hospitals, healthcare facilities, telehealth operations and access, remote healthcare robotics
  • Manufacturing, business attraction, retention, development, and precision agriculture
  • Access to education and improving the internet at schools and libraries
  • Highly skilled jobs through infrastructure deployment, supply chain logistics and management, network operations, and customer service
  • Access to public safety and first responders to save lives safely in remote areas
• Elimination of Some Program Requirements: The Policy Notice eliminates certain prior BEAD requirements, including fair labor practices, workforce development, local and Tribal coordination, and climate change resilience.
• Benefit of the Bargain Round: Eligible Entities (states) must conduct at least one new subgrantee selection round, called the "Benefit of the Bargain Round," where all internet service providers-even if they haven’t participated thus far-can apply.
• Scoring Rubrics: The scoring criteria for subgrantee selection are revised to focus on minimizing the cost of deployment, with secondary criteria including speed to deployment, speed of network and other technical capabilities, and provisional selection status.
• Optimizing BEAD Locations: BEAD-eligible location lists will be modified to include locations no longer served due to defaults or changes in service areas of federally enforceable commitments. NTIA will provide states with a list of such locations.
• Consistent with IIJA, Eligible Entities shall require potential BEAD subgrantees to propose an LCSO as part of their applications that meets certain speed and performance criteria. As required by IIJA and the NOFO, the LCSO must offer speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps and latency performance of no more than 100 milliseconds. Applicants that already offer a low-cost plan that meets these service requirements may satisfy the LCSO requirement by proposing to offer their existing low-cost plan to eligible subscribers." See Section 2.7 of the BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice for more information.
• Modification of Initial and Final Proposals: NTIA is rescinding previous Final Proposal approvals and requiring Eligible Entities (states) to submit a letter requesting an Initial Proposal correction to incorporate the terms of the new Policy Notice.
• Restarting the process has the following impacts on rural Colorado:
  • Starting over adds a year, delaying construction until late summer 2026
  • This delay will cost the CBO an additional $2M in taxpayer funding
  • Each ISP application previously costs $300K-$1M depending on project size
  • ISPs have invested nearly $20M in the BEAD program in rural Colorado

Next Steps

• To comply with the new NTIA guidelines, The Colorado Broadband Office (CBO) is rescinding all preliminary BEAD awards.

 

New BEAD Round

• A new single-round BEAD application process, named "Benefit of the Bargain Round," will be initiated and all eligible entities, including previous preliminary awardees, can apply. It is CBO’s goal to make this as simple as possible for applicants. The CBO will release more information on this process and updated guidelines soon.
• The resubmission process:
  • Applications will be submitted through a new application in the BEAD Advance Grants Portal. CBO will provide details soon.
  • CBO will provide an updated list of eligible locations, including newly eligible locations that are no longer served due to a default or change in service area on a Federal enforceable commitment.

Timeline

• The application window opening date will be communicated by CBO as soon as it is confirmed.
• The BEAD Final Proposal awards must be submitted to NTIA for approval within 90 days of the release of the BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice, by September 4, 2025.

 

The changes to the BEAD program are significant along with the potential impacts to Colorado rural communities who are underserved and unserved with high-speed broadband.

 

Please reach out if you have any questions.

 

Sending our best,

Sally

 

 

Sally Boccella

Regional Director | Northern Colorado and Eastern Plains

Office of U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper

Cell 970-413-1967

Sally_B...@Hickenlooper.Senate.gov

She/Her  Why this matters

 

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