Mississippi Broadband Director: Funding Awarded to the State Has Gotten “Larger and Larger”

The state of Mississippi will be getting one of the largest allotments in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program–$1.2 billion. The funding comes on top of $151.5 million that the state was awarded from the Capital Projects Fund and an earlier award of $32.6 million from the Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP). “We started with a smaller award and the awards have been getting larger and larger," said Sally Doty, director of the Office of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi (BEAM). That experience helped Doty and others in her office gain experience that should serve them well in administering the BEAD program. Doty noted, for example, that initially, she didn’t realize how important archaeologists would be to broadband funding programs. “You have to have them to get the necessary approvals,” she said. When asked if the $1.2 billion in BEAD funding will be enough to make broadband available to everyone in the state, Doty said, “It’s going to be close.” The answer, she said, will depend on a variety of factors, including awards made using the CPF money awarded to the state and the percentage of matching funds that awardees are willing to contribute.