State broadband officials call grant awards ‘wonderful,’ if less than expected

A day after the Biden administration announced how it will distribute its nearly $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Accessibility, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program, a group of state broadband officials touted the hundreds of millions of dollars they’re set to oversee, but with a note of curiosity as to why their awards weren’t greater. While this infusion of cash is undoubtedly cause for celebration, some of the broadband officials questioned how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) arrived at its funding decisions. Jade Piros de Carvalho, director of the Kansas Office of Broadband Development, said she was pleased with the $452 million awarded to her state, but that she wanted to review how the NTIA arrived at that number. The NTIA’s distribution of the BEAD fund was based largely on data contained in the Federal Communications Commission’s nationwide coverage maps, which have been under scrutiny for months. Kelly Schlegel, director of the New Mexico Office of Broadband Expansion, agreed that the funding was “wonderful,” but expressed some disappointment that her state only received $675 million. Schlegel said New Mexico submitted 34,000 locations to the FCC that were not added to the map during the months-long challenge process leading up to the NTIA’s grant allocation. That, she said, was a “big hit” to the state’s total award. Virginia, which is due nearly $1.5 billion, was a bit more successful in challenging the FCC’s map data, said Tamarah Holmes, director of the Office of Broadband at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. Holmes described how the commonwealth used existing state-level maps to challenge the FCC’s data, crediting one young staff member whose job centered on filing challenges with increasing Virginia’s total award by nearly $200 million.