The Extra Costs of BEAD Funding

There are a lot of extra costs for a broadband provider to accept Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding including Environmental and Historic Preservation Reviews, Letters of Credit, Prevailing Wages, Requirements on Contractors, Reporting Requirements, and Taxes. I have to laugh when I look at these requirements and see that reaching that single remote location might get layered with hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra costs. The biggest drawback of expensive grant compliance is that it drives up the cost of every grant project. And that means that the BEAD money won’t stretch as far to bring broadband to as many homes. For an individual grant applicant, the extra cost translates into the need for more out-of-pocket matching funds – which in some cases will be enough to make a project infeasible. The many extra grant requirements feel like we’re applying a pound of prevention to solve an ounce of risk. Any one of the various grant requirements can probably be justified, but when taken as a whole, the grant requirements are adding extra cost and hassle that will make many ISPs pass on the opportunity.