Utah, Arizona broadband directors estimate BEAD high cost thresholds

At what point is it too expensive to deploy fiber? That's a key question for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program participants looking to deploy alternative technologies in hard to reach areas of the country. To hear state broadband officials for Utah and Arizona tell it, the magic number will likely be between $10,000 and $15,000 per passing. Rebecca Dilg, director of Utah’s Broadband Center, said the state’s high-cost threshold for fiber would probably be $13,000 to $15,000 although this is just an estimate until the state starts seeing “results from proposals.” Sandip Bhowmick, Arizona’s state broadband director, said, “Anything less than $10,000, we will probably go with fiber. Anything over that we’ll probably switch over to alternate technology.” He said any passing costing more than $15,000, which he described as a very high-cost level, will “definitely be satellite.” Dilg noted that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has a preference for fiber, so anything that is fiber will get higher points in Utah’s BEAD scoring process. She said the broadband office would be “promoting and wanting to get fiber as far and as much as we can.” But the state is not likely to have sufficient funding to deploy fiber everywhere. In Arizona, the broadband office wants to make sure that whatever technology is deployed will be sustainable to operate. Bhowmick said it wouldn’t make sense to deploy fiber in very sparsely populated areas. For instance, he said areas where it would require 10 miles of fiber to serve two households wouldn’t make sense because “no one would be managing that” in the future. “We’re seeing things more from a sustainably perspective,” he said.