First State BEAD Plan Approved in Louisiana

Louisiana’s approved Volume 2 illustrates where the key areas of flexibility that has been granted to states in deploying BEAD intersects with the guardrails Congress and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) have set. We'll take a closer look at three key points of the Louisiana plan:

• Low cost requirement: The Louisiana low-cost option has a baseline $30 per month plan, with an evidence-based waiver process for providers to follow in order to charge up to $65. The state will also allow the provider’s low-cost plan to increase each year based on the Consumer Price Index, up to a max of 3 percent to account for inflation. Critically, the Louisiana plan also mentions it will use up to 20 percent of its nondeployment funding to create a new monthly subsidy program to work in tandem with the Affordable Connectivity Plan, conceivably covering the cost increase for customers on any low-cost options that are allowed to exceed the $30 rate. 
• Project areas: Broadband offices must detail how they’ll be able to solicit for bids on every eligible location in their state. Louisiana plans to meet this requirement by pre-defining “sub-project areas” to ensure individual homes and businesses are not left out of the bidding process. The state will then incentivize providers to include “economically disadvantaged” sub-project areas. The sub-project areas will be released for comment along with a pre-qualification process for providers.
• Scoring: Louisiana’s plan puts a heavy emphasis on infrastructure resiliency, an understandable priority given the state’s painful history with hurricanes. An eighth of each project’s score will be based on the applicant’s commitment to bury at least 90 percent of its fiber, including burying 100 percent of the network that connects any community anchor institution. As part of the broadband office’s initial screen of weather and climate hazards based on past and future risks, the office has identified specific sub-project areas that have “critical resiliency needs” where there is a “lack of minimal mobile broadband service.” To increase connectivity and offer redundancy for emergency communications, applicants proposing to build networks in these locations will be awarded additional points if they include infrastructure to deliver enhanced mobile service.