In Washington State’s First BEAD Round, 77% of Locations Receive Bids

Feb. 14, 2025 – The first round of applications for Washington State’s $1.2 billion slice of federal broadband funding yielded more bids for 77 percent of the state’s eligible locations. The window closed Jan. 31, 2025.

The state said Thursday more than 300 applications came in from ISP, tribes, counties, and public utility districts, with nearly half the eligible locations receiving multiple bids. There are about 214,000 homes and businesses deemed to lack adequate broadband in the state.

“The incredible interest in this round of funding makes it clear that people all over Washington want access to fast and reliable internet,” Washington State Department of Commerce Director Joe Nguyen said in a statement. Nguyen, a former state senator, was appointed to the job last month.

“I want to thank our partners in the state who have worked so hard to make this day possible and chose to participate in this generational opportunity to change lives in communities that haven’t had access to high-speed internet previously,” he continued.

The money comes from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. States were given individual allocations from that funding pool and tasked with selecting projects as they see fit, within some guidelines set by the Infrastructure Act and the federal government.

Washington is planning on fielding two more rounds of applications, an effort to secure coverage for areas that didn’t receive a qualifying bid in the first round. Dates for those rounds will be announced after the first tranche of applications are reviewed, the state said.

Arielle Roth, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the NTIA, the agency handling BEAD, has been critical of BEAD’s preference for fiber, as have Republican lawmakers. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for whom Roth serves as a top telecom policy advisor, shares the criticisms has said to expect changes to the program’s rules. It’s not clear exactly what that might entail.

More than half the states have started taking grant applications under the current project selection rules. Three states – Louisiana, Nevada, and Delaware – received approval to move forward with spending plans in the final days of the Biden administration.

States can fund non-fiber projects under the existing rules, as long as no fiber provider submits a qualifying bid for a given area or if fiber would be too expensive, something states are given leeway to decide.