Virginia Broadband Director Shares How the State Got a Head Start on BEAD

Virginia will be receiving nearly $1.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program rural broadband funding—one of the higher amounts allotted in the program. Virginia’s goal is to ensure universal service, and as Dr. Tamarah Holmes, director of the state’s broadband office, noted, “Before federal funding was made available, our biggest challenge to reach this goal was money.” While some states only recently established broadband offices, Dr Holmes has been in her position since 2019 and has overseen the office grow from just herself to a 15-person team within the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Virginia’s broadband program originated in 2017, when $1 million was allocated for the creation of a broadband deployment program whose sole purpose would be to supplement construction costs for the private sector. The Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI) was developed and launched under Dr Holmes.  VATI has already allocated approximately $900 million to serve almost 400k locations. Much of this was facilitated by the American Rescue Plan Act, which made funding available to states that could be used for broadband. Most recently, VATI handed out $59.5 million in broadband funding.