Maps or not, the 'starting gun' for states that want broadband funds is in May

Alan Davidson, the administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) who is overseeing the disbursement of the $42 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, said the "starting gun" of the program will go off May 16 when states can officially start declaring they want the money. The five-year plans that states are supposed to develop next, though, could hit immediate roadblocks. Those plans are dependent on identifying which areas are unserved and underserved by broadband, as measured on Federal Communications Commission maps that have been delayed for years. "That timeline depends quite a bit on when the FCC maps are in shape to to be available for that purpose," Davidson said. According to him, the NTIA has "some great maps" available to compensate for the notoriously insufficient ones the FCC currently makes available. Many states have also done their own mapping, and communities often have a robust sense of local broadband coverage, he added. "Our hope is that — working with local communities, working with the mapping data that's available — states can begin their planning," Davidson said. "Then when we have the final maps, we'll be able to make those final determinations about allocations and ultimately where to deploy."