50 Ways to Love (not Leave) Your Anchor Institutions

There are at least seven reasons why states should consider connecting anchor institutions early in the broadband deployment process rather than at the tail end:

1.  The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) “strongly encourages” applicants to serve anchor institutions. Anchor institutions are more than just an afterthought. If a state ignores anchors, it will not be in compliance with the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) “strong preference” for connecting anchors.
2. The IIJA does not say that states must connect unserved/underserved households before connecting anchors.  It says that states must have a plan to connect unserved and underserved households before connecting anchors. This is a significant distinction, as states can and should include connecting anchors in the same plan as a way to reach unserved and underserved households. 
3. From a practical perspective, most communities have a mix of unserved, underserved households and anchor institutions in the same region. Bringing workers and installation equipment to connect homes to fiber or wireless, only to bring them back two years later to connect eligible anchors in the same community, would be extremely wasteful. 
4. There may be good reason to connect eligible anchors first, not last. A reasonable, economically-efficient, and sustainable build-out strategy is to deploy multi-strand fiber to the anchor institutions first, and then build off of that high-capacity connection with wireless or fiber to connect the surrounding unserved/underserved homes.
5. The BEAD NOFO says that at least 80% of the locations in a project area must include unserved locations. That means up to 20% of the locations do not have to be unserved/underserved homes; they could be anchor institutions.  
6. While last-mile connections are the main focus, the BEAD NOFO says that funding may be used for middle-mile connections if necessary to bring internet service to homes.  In some cases, building middle-mile networks directly to the anchor institutions may be necessary to ensure that backhaul is brought closer to the unserved/underserved homes.
7. Deploying broadband to anchors and homes simultaneously may encourage more Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to participate in the program.  Anchor institutions can be “anchor tenants” on the network, helping to pay ongoing fees to support the costs of operating the network. The more anchors on the network, the more revenue for the ISP, and the more likely the network will be sustainable in the long run.